President Barack Obama said General Motors Co.’s return to the stock market shows the U.S. auto industry is on the rise and will result in taxpayers getting their money back from a government bailout. Read the full story after the jump…

“Today, one of the toughest tales of the recession took another big step towards becoming a success story,” Obama said Thursday at the White House after GM raised more than $20 billion from investors.

GM received a $49.5 billion taxpayer bailout last year and the U.S. Treasury will get as much as $13.6 billion from the initial public offering. For taxpayers to be fully repaid, the remaining shares held by the government would have to be sold at an average of about $53 each to make back its total investment, Bloomberg data show. GM gained 3.6 percent to $34.19, paring an earlier climb of 9.1 percent.

Obama defended the politically unpopular bailout of GM and Chrysler Group LLC. Failing to act would have “resulted in economic chaos,” he said.

“We’ve still got a long road ahead and a lot of work to do to rebuild this economy,” Obama said. “We are finally beginning to see some of these tough decisions that we made in the midst of crisis pay off.”

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