Not just no, but hell no

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" -- Ronald Reagan

Well, the government is "here to help" once again. This time, the government wants to "help" the Big Three, a.k.a. Ford, Chrysler and GM, to the tune of $25 billion.
Why not? The spigot, after all, was turned all the way on when we (that's you and me, dear taxpayer) heaped a $700 billion free-for-all onto the banking and credit industry and, thanks to Congress, placed responsibility for spending that money onto one person. One government person. Without so much as a single eye of oversight, too.

Oh, Libs like Barney Frank now are screaming bloody murder, saying they had NO IDEA what they had signed on for. If memory serves, these same Libs said the same thing about the authorization they granted the President back in 2002 to take action against Iraq -- not once, but TWICE!

I don't know how any of you feel, but isn't it time our elected officials start making the effort to actually read and understand something before passing it into law? I realize that would cut into the time they need to glob millions in earmarks onto everything they pass, but the "I had no idea!" excuse is wearing kinda thin.
What has the Libs posturing (and certain Republicans who opposed the bailout from Day 1, such as Jeff Sessions, saying "I told you so") is that instead of using that money to buy "distressed loans" from these banking institutions and, ultimately, saving Joe Citizen from foreclosure, the government instead has used it to buy equity in the banking industry.

That's right. Your federal government, instead of helping struggling homeowners by purchasing all those bad loans as was promised, instead now owns an even bigger chunk of what used to be a private entity.

That alone is Reason One that Republicans and the President are right to say "No way in hell" to this proposed $25 billion "bailout" of the auto industry.

As I've been saying since the first day I put fingers to keyboard in this little window, the government has NO BUSINESS meddling in our business. Not only does it not have the business doing so, it lacks the capability. Period. End of story.

But Reason Two for shooting down this particular Christmas present is that it would represent just that to the unions Democrats are so beholden to. That's right. Libs love to bash Big Business. Except, that is, when a particular Big Business is run by the UAW. (Or, in the case of Big Universities, liberal brainwashing is practiced.)
For one thing, GM made such hideous investments with money set aside for pensions in the 1980s that since the late 1990s, it's been losing more than $1 billion PER MONTH. And given Wall Street's recent meltdown, there's no telling how high those losses have climbed.

So what's $25 billion going to do? Sustain them for another year or so?
Further, when I read about the economy's hit to the auto industry, I don't read that sales are only down at Ford, Chrysler and GM. They're down industry-wide. So why isn't the U.S. division of Toyota crying for a bailout?

Well, for one thing, figures from 2006 show the average Big Three union worker made in excess of $70 per hour in wages and benefits. By comparison, non-union workers at Toyota here in the U.S. made an average of $47 per hour in wages and benefits.

Bottom line here is that there's no chance the union is going to accept wage freezes, let alone wage cuts. The UAW, as it has done in mutiple auto industry offshoots, has shown a perfect willingness to let struggling businesses go under and employees join the ranks of the unemployed than accept any kind of cut.

Democrats, naturally, are all for giving unions what they want, which is why they're pushing so hard for this bailout.

You tell me (and seriously, TELL ME!). Those of you making making around $20 or $30 per hour ... should YOUR tax dollars go to bail out a company and save workers who are making in excess of $70 per hour?

I'm no math wizard, but we're told there are 3 million auto workers in Michigan alone who could be out of work unless WE SAVE THEM.

Well, let's say those 3 million take a $10 cut in their wage/benefit hourly rate. (They'd still be making more than twice the average American worker.) That comes to $30 million PER HOUR in savings.

It would take 1000 hours to reach $30 billion. That's 25 work weeks.

I seem to remember Joe Biden recently saying "It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."

I say tell that to Ford, Chrysler and GM ... and most of all, the UAW.

I say hell no to any more bailouts, ESPECIALLY this one.

(Imported from Nov. 20, 2008)