The Treasury Department’s SIGTARP report to Congress shows that taxpayers lost $9.695 billion on the General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) bailout, once loan repayments and stock sales were taken into account. The sum seems large, but the trade-off, which was the salvation of the country’s largest car company, was worthwhile.

First and foremost, GM has added tens of thousands of jobs to the American economy since it shrank rapidly during the recession. Many of the workers and executives have collected hundreds of millions of dollars in special bonuses because of GM’s recent success. Those amounts were taxed, and much of them worked their way back into the economy in terms of consumer spending. There also has been a ripple effect, which cannot be calculated, as jobs were added to the auto supply industry, which was decimated when the car companies were nearly destroyed.

The income taxes GM has paid have been modest, about $742 million in the most recent quarter. That does not take into account the federal, state and local taxes paid by its employees. All totaled, since GM was rescued, these combined taxes paid by GM and its workers must be into the billions of dollars, which also helps offset the Treasury’s $9.695 billion deficit.

A number of car industry experts would argue that GM could have been rescued by a car company based outside the United States. Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) and Volkswagen had the balance sheets to do it. The move would have given either an extra 15% of the American car market. It also might have caused the shuttering of plants and more layoffs. The extent of those activities cannot be estimated. Nor can the chance that a foreign car company might have alternatively added jobs or manufacturing facilities. No matter — a foreign buyout would have allowed the federal government to avoid risking a dime.

Another effect that is impossible to measure but essential to any analysis of the taxpayer loss on the GM investment would be what it would have meant to the country, including all those taxpayers who put money into GM, if the nation’s largest car maker was sold off in pieces, or as a whole to a company from outside America. If most of those taxpayers were polled, it is almost certain that they would support the price each of them paid to save GM, and keeping it an American company would be considered cheap.

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