It’s really a sad day in so many ways. One of this nation’s premier companies, General Motors, the maker of the Chevrolet Corvette, the Buick Century, the Pontiac Trans-Am, has filed for bankruptcy, and the US taxpayer is now the principal owner.
Columnist David Brooks of the New York Times writes that “the Obama plan rides roughshod over the current private investors and so discourages further investors.”
The Wall Street Journal editorialized that “Mr. Obama likes to say he’s a pragmatist who only prefers a government solution when it will work. But in resurrecting an industrial auto policy that even the French long ago abandoned, the President has made himself GM’s de facto CEO. Our guess is that he’ll come to regret it as much as taxpayers will.”
The UAW which is closely aligned with the Obama Administration and the Democrats in Congress is quite pleased now, even though back in December the union’s President, Ron Gettelfinger was one of the loudest voices against a GM bankruptcy stating at the time “there is no question in my mind that people would not buy their vehicles if these companies (GM and Chrysler) went into bankruptcy.” Now he strongly supports the Obama/GM bankruptcy. Why the Change? Well the Union gets a 17.5% piece of the company, and a major voice in setting policy. They were for example successfully able to get a ban on foreign imports of cars that GM would sell in the United States. So even though consumers and taxpayers may be disadvantaged, you can be sure that the auto workers union will continue to make more than 90% of their political contributions to Congressional Democrats.
President Obama has been quoted as saying that “I have no interest in running GM.” So what is he doing? Running GM – and with your tax dollars.
And when does it end; what is the exit strategy? There isn’t one. There is no way of knowing when or how this unprecedented intervention by the government into the private sector will end. And it’s all being paid for with your hard-earned tax dollars.