WASHINGTON — Taxpayers will lose about $14 billion in the government’s $80 billion bailout of Chrysler and GM, the White House said Wednesday, portraying the outcome as good news since the losses are far lower than originally anticipated.

Seizing on the figures, the Obama administration took credit for the resurgence of the U.S. auto industry, assuring taxpayers that the government’s bailout of Chrysler and GM was an investment worth making.

A report by the president’s National Economic Council noted that as Detroit automakers rebound, the taxpayers’ loss from the bailout will be about $14 billion, or less than 20 percent of the $80 billion that the Bush and Obama administration used to prop up the companies in 2008. The Treasury Department had expected losses closer to 60 percent.

The report was part of a carefully devised strategy by the White House to draw attention to an industry that’s on the mend and whose footprint is most noticeable in key presidential battleground states. In recent days, Vice President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner have both promoted the government’s GM and Chrysler interventions as risky moves by President Barack Obama that paid off.

Obama is making the most out of Chrysler’s announcement last week that it is repaying $5.9 billion in U.S. loans and a $1.7 billion loan from the Canadian government ahead of schedule. Those payments cover most of the federal bailout money that saved the company after it nearly ran out of cash and went through a government-led bankruptcy.