More on the Auto Bailout
Here’s a couple of follow-up pieces regarding the proposed bailout of the auto industry.
First, if you paid close attention to my first post regarding the the auto bailout, you will notice that I mentioned that the UAW was lobbying the Democrats to send an obscene amount of money to the auto makers to delay their inevitable demise.
Looks like I was correct. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger has stated the workers will not make any more concessions to help the slumping auto makers. Gettelfinger called for Congress to act quickly on a bailout plan for the auto industry.
Don’t you just love this? The UAW refuses to make concessions and then demands money from the government. Does it matter that a big reason the auto industry is failing is because unionized employees blackmail employers into paying far more in benefits and salary than they are worth? No. What matters is that unions retain their power. If Ford and GM go under, these unions and union leaders suddenly hold no power and they will not stand for that. So, instead of making concessions from their insane salary and benefits demands, they require that government give the industry money to keep it afloat. They trade the votes of the union membership for money in order to retain their power. Democrats are more than willing to play along since they are also seeking to retain power in the government.
Now to address another article I read regarding the auto industry bailout. I stated before that the Democrats were putting on a clinic on how to buy votes by pushing for an auto bailout. As it turns out, the current administration is guilty of this as well.
Bush is suggesting that the money used to bailout the auto industry come from loans that were approved in September (but not dispersed). He is suggesting that Congress accelerate the availability of these loans. Originally, these loans were earmarked for the purpose of helping auto makers build more fuel-efficient vehicles so that they could become more competitive in the global marketplace (even though they have failed to do this for decades spending their own money). Now these loans will be used to simple keep the companies from crapping out financially.
To sum up – Democrats want to send $25 billion from the financial bailout to the auto makers to secure their votes and Bush has upped the ante by allowing money that was originally set aside for the development of fuel efficient vehicles to be used to keep the auto makers from going under. Looks like the Republicans are going to secure a few votes for themselves in the next election.
Its bi-partisan vote-buying like this that has driven me to libertarianism. And the worst part is that they are buying votes with MY money.