An ISU professor said Monday that the financial trouble of General Motors requires help from the goverment.

Automaker GM declared bankruptcy early Monday morning, despite previously receiving nearly $20 billion from the Obama administration, capping the end of a traumatic time of market downturns and energy price increases.

“People won’t get an argument about the inefficient business model,” said David Swenson, associate scientist in economics. “GM were showing profits on selling SUVs up until about a few years ago, but they didn’t anticipate the economy and complete lack of customers spending money.”

Despite filing for bankruptcy protection, the government is planning to spend another $30 billion to try to keep GM afloat during reorganization. Obama and GM officials hope making a vested interest to keep the nation’s largest automaker viable will prevent a larger collapse among the auto industry.

“If GM were allowed to fail, suppliers would have shut down in a cascading pattern in the middle of a recession, which would not be good at all,” Swenson said.

Swenson said the government is responsible for helping GM.

“Not every company is going to get this much financial attention, but if losing a company is going to make us worse off, then the government has an obligation to try and save it,” Swenson said.

However, just because taxpayers invested a large amount of money into GM does not mean it translates into a profit for the company.

“It’s probable GM could be viable again, but GM will probably close quite a few factories — anything they consider surplus,” Swenson said. “If it weren’t for the assistance, GM probably would have filed for Chapter 11 right after the first of the year.”