Why should Cerberus and Chrysler get federal aid if they don't open up their books?

Chrysler LLC says it’s almost broke and needs federal aid to survive. Perhaps that’s true. Yet taxpayers should be asking: How do we know?

Sure, we can surmise from all the awful vehicles Chrysler makes that it’s losing mountains of dough. Really, though, we have no idea. We don’t even know who sits on the company’s board of directors. That’s because Chrysler and its owner, Cerberus Capital Management LP, won’t disclose the information.

There ought to be a law: If a company is so desperate and devoid of dignity that it’s willing to beg for a government bailout, the least it should be required to do is disclose its latest financial statements, fully footnoted, independently audited, and sworn to by each of its officers and directors.

It’s the only way for taxpayers to know if the mess is as ugly as Chrysler says. Trust but verify, the old Cold War saying goes. And we should be just as wary of Chrysler and Cerberus as Ronald Reagan was of the Soviet Union.