Democrats To Once Again Bail Out Automakers
As reported by PoliGazette yesterday and earlier last week, Democrats are expected to try to convince the White House to bail out automakers as well as financial institutions on the brink of collapse. The reason for this is not that bankruptcy for automakers would destroy the U.S. economy. Rather, the reason for the Democrats’ push is extensive lobbying from said companies: they have hired many lobbyists who are rewarding politicians who help their clients out.
President-elect Barack Obama himself promised automakers to help them out as president, as presidents and Congresses have done several times in the last couple of decades, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have now started urging the U.S. Treasury Department to do so as well.
They want the U.S. government to help automakers such as General Motors, which recently reported a multi-billion loss in the third quarter of this year. Ford too reported major losses.
Automakers have said in recent weeks that they are essential to the U.S. economy. If they would be allowed to fall, they argue, the entire economy would suffer.
Although an understandable lie from their perspective, it is a lie nonetheless. The automobile industry is not essential to the U.S. economy. If some automakers would fail and others would have to push through serious reforms in order to become more (cost) efficient, the economy as a whole would be able to deal with it. Financial institutions were bailed out, so the defense went, because the entire U.S. economy would fall if not action were taken. This is most certainly not the case with the automobile industry.
U.S. automakers are weak, and have been weak and unable to compete for decades. Rather than keeping them alive, or on life support actually, the U.S. government should have the courage to let them fall – for that will cost taxpayers considerably less in the long run then trying to keep them alive when they are actually brain-dead.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
Should we really let them fail? In a perfect market economy in a peaceful world, sure. But when tensions between Islamic countries, Russia, China, et al, mar the marketplace there’s reason to introduce inefficiency in order to ensure domestic – read “dependable” production of key products.
I agree 100% with Mitt Romney’s take on this…
“IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
and his follow up on the article on the Today show here..
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27818745#27818745