By MONICA DAVEY and SUSAN SAULNY


KALAMAZOO, Michigan - Wander Michigan’s cities and towns, and many residents offer the same message about the prospect of a $34 billion bailout of America’s automakers: Please provide the help, not just for the sake of the automobile industry and its workers but for all the other people whose jobs are so intricately braided into the state’s autocentric economy.

But the quiet truth in Michigan, home of the Big Three car manufacturers, is that the state is not of one voice on the matter.

Other opinions are alive, and they can be just as passionate in opposition to a rescue - even though all of Michigan’s Congressional delegation, Democrats and Republicans alike, support it.

“There are plenty of people who are rolling their eyes,”said Bill Ballenger, editor of the influential newsletter Inside Michigan Politics.“You keep your head down if you’re one of them, but they’re out there. There are a lot of them.”

In interviews across the state, criticism of the automakers’request surfaced again and again. Many people said they had long watched Michigan’s economy strain and falter - in some cases causing the collapse of their own employers and loss of their own jobs - and could no longer see why the Big Three should be singled out for rescue.

“How many other, small companies would like a bailout-”said Heather Davison, who lives in Davisburg, less than an hour north of Detroit, and has been unemployed for a year.“It seems to me that the car companies saw the banks getting a bailout and said, ‘Oh, let’s go!’ ”

Ms.Davison, 34, lost her job as a graphic designer for a real estate publication when the company she worked for failed. She said General Motors, Ford and Chrysler should have made changes to their cars and work force years ago.“They should have made a car that was more efficient,”she said.

John Raterink, a tool and machine maker who works at a small shop in Grand Rapids that supplies parts to the auto industry, opposes a bailout even though his livelihood is tethered to the car makers. Mr.Raterink, 46, blames the Big Three for a lot of economic misery.

“I remember when G.M. shut down 11 plants, some of which were in the Great Lakes region,” he said.“They said,‘We can’t afford to keep doing business like this.’But do you know what happened at the upper echelon of G.M.? They got sixfigure bonuses at the end of the year. It’s really hard to feel sorry for a company that’s lived so high on the hog.”

The Big Three’s share of the market has dropped 30 percentage points in the last 13 years, to some 44 percent. That plunge has had a ripple effect across the state, home to more than half the people employed nationwide by the Big Three.

Michigan can hardly afford it. The state’s economy has been in recession for years. The unemployment rate is 9.3 percent - tied with Rhode Island’s for the highest in the country - and the safety net of social services is stretched beyond ability to care for all of those in need.

But though the failure of any of the auto companies could make life in Michigan harder still, opponents of the rescue stand firm, many convinced that any federal loan would provide only a temporary fix anyway.

Jeffrey Kerr, a real estate developer who lives in the Lake Michigan town of Saugatuck, objects to the personal costs that he says come with bailouts.“When the government starts bailing out private companies,”Mr.Kerr said, “what they’re basically saying is,‘We’re going to tax you more for a very long time.’ ”

At the shop where Mr.Raterink makes tools and machinery, there used to be 15 men. Now there are five.

“They weren’t offered any bailout,”he said of those who lost their jobs. Then, of the Big Three and the mismanagement he perceives, he added, “The wolf you let loose is at your door.”