HAMTRAMCK, Michigan (AP) — On Joseph Campau Avenue in this ramshackle but vibrant little downtown, they try to hide the fear that the auto industry, the source of their livelihoods, might one day collapse into a heap of steel and bankruptcy.

But strip away the bravado, and the business owners hardened by years of watching their Detroit enclave decay will admit to being nervous as Congress haggles over a $15 billion deal that would keep General Motors and Chrysler alive only through March.

Like car dealers, auto workers and thousands of business owners near factories across America, people here were relieved on Saturday to hear of the deal, but worried about a potential collapse in the months ahead.

In addition to the 240,000 employed by the Detroit Three, one study says those jobs support another 2.6 million people nationwide, from truck drivers who haul parts, to secretaries at steel mills, to the 30 cooks and waitresses at Hamtramck's Maine Street Restaurant.

"Thirty to 40 percent of our business would drop, and that's a conservative number," said Mario Lulgjuraj, 30, who grew up in the city and has built the eatery's business since he bought it when he was 21. "I hope they restructure the companies, the big guys out there. I hope all is well."

The highly ethnic city of 23,000, which is decades past its prime, has a huge GM assembly plant on one corner and a giant axle-making complex on another. Few places in the world are as dependent on one industry.

More than a third of Hamtramck's annual budget comes from the taxes paid by GM and American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings plants which straddle its boundaries with Detroit.

"It's hard for me to imagine a contingency plan" if Washington doesn't bailout the automakers, said Mayor Karen Majewski, whose town recently emerged from state-required financial oversight.

Both GM and Chrysler are running so low on cash that soon, if not already, they won't be able to pay all their bills. Without government help, both have said staying alive will be difficult, perhaps impossible. Bankruptcy, they say, would be tantamount to liquidation because no one will make a long-term purchase like a car from a bankrupt company.

Although many in Congress differ, the automakers say much of their trouble has roots on Wall Street, where a crisis triggered by mortgage defaults has made credit so tight that many car deals can't be financed.

The money won't come without strings, but that's OK to dealers worried that family businesses will perish if the companies they represent can't make it.

"This allows them time," said Carl Galeana, vice president of the Galeana Automotive Group in the Detroit area, which owns seven dealerships in three US states. "Hopefully, the credit markets will open up so they can open their financing and people can buy cars."

But more time, according to sceptics in Congress, will do no good. Detroit's costs are too high, their products inferior and their management too stupid. The top executives, critics argue, ignored what should have been an obvious rise in gas prices and a shift away from their inefficient pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.

"If you made this presentation to get a bank loan, I suspect that any sensible banker would summarily dismiss your request," Sen. Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the Banking Committee, told the CEOs of Chrysler, GM and Ford Motor Co. during a hearing on the loans last week.

But auto industry supporters say if the $15 billion lifeline goes through, it will buy enough time for the companies to live until Barack Obama takes office and can figure out a long-term strategy to save them.

"He's been committed to helping the auto industry out," said Dave Green, president of a United Auto Workers local at a hulking GM car factory in Lordstown, Ohio, near Cleveland. "We're just glad to make it through to next year. Obviously with Barack Obama in office, we feel much more confident that whatever measures are taken are going to be in Main Street's best interest."

Others in the industry said concessions from different stakeholders before the end of March would be critical to helping the companies.

In the meantime, dealers are going to extraordinary measures to entice customers in the worst auto sales market in 26 years.

On Saturday, FC Kerbeck in Palmyra, New Jersey, held a "Markdown Madness" sale on Cadillac, Buick, GMC and other vehicles. But despite the lure of 50 percent off the manufacturer's suggested price, there were only a handful of customers on the lot in the early afternoon and three times more salespeople.