Illinois Senator and the presumed Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama pushed for a plan to help the struggling U.S. car makers make more fuel-efficient cars with $4 billion in guaranteed loans and tax credits.

"I know how much the auto industry and the autoworkers of this state have struggled over the last decade or so," Obama told about 1,000 supporters at the Lansing Center who sang him "Happy Birthday" on his 47th. "But I also know where I want the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow to be built -- not in Japan, not in China, but right here in the United States of America. Right here in the state of Michigan."

According to the Detroit Free Press, the massive loan is part of a larger alternative energy proposal calling for $150 billion disbursed over a 10-year period. The new pitch would require the big three to step up their work on more fuel-efficient cars and more advance batteries for plug-in hybrids, as well as allot a $7,000 federal tax credit to the buyers of such vehicles.