Thursday, January 01, 2009

Screw you- we're Bailing out the Car Companies!

So as you remember, the US auto industry wants money to save them so they can live to make shitty cars for another day. I'm not keen on the idea.

I'm not alone. Polls have asked whether or not Americans support using tax money to bail out the auto industry. A majority of the public is opposed to the idea.

Congress met to vote on whether or not 14 million would be given to bail out the auto industry. They voted no, it would not.

So, the President gave General Motors and Chrysler 17.5 bllion of money that Congress did not authorize for that use- from the TARP funds that were explicitly set aside to bail out the banks. The bloated executive branch now looking down upon the other branches like a corpulent, bemused monarch, chuckling at the quaint old idea of checks and balances...

George Will gets it

''Most of the administration's executive truculence has pertained to national security, where the case for broad prerogatives, although not as powerful as the administration supposes, is at least arguable. With the automakers, however, executive branch overreaching now extends to the essence of domestic policy -- spending -- and traduces a core constitutional principle, the separation of powers.''

Andrew Sullivan gets it:

''The proper description for the seizure of the TARP money to spend on something Congress declined to spend it on is ... lawless.''

Every other 'conservative' blog or column I've read? Not so much. I don't even get the feeling that the news programs are talking about it. Are people just not interested?

Meanwhile, I keep getting these weird mass emails from 'Conservative' and 'Libertarian' organizations about how we have to start worrying about President Obama now, three weeks before he takes office. And that's all good and well- he might well suck- but it's amazing to me that the sitting President just set aside 17 billion dollars of our taxes for a use that was explicitly voted down by the legislative branch and unpopular with the majority of Americans and there's nary a peep in protest. How can these people keep a straight face when they bitch about the ''coming socialism''? I mean, they clearly don't care.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I wasn't exactly going high-class either- I was using a poll that I believe USA Today was behind.

I guess it's good for them to have drummed up some support for this thing. But, really even if 90% of the public supports it, what amazed me is that the executive has gotten to this point where they think the legislative and judicial branches are some sort of consultants to their branch.

As for Canada's auto industry, there's fairly strong support here for bailing them out, so it'll happen. In a parliamentary system, we don't really have an executive branch, so some of my complaints are moot. Of course, we're still talking about the big three losers here too. Sadly, there is no Canadian automobile- although, of course, a Canadian company- Bombardier- invented the snowmobile, and still makes a lot of them.

I'm still not thrilled about the bailout here or there though. A friend of mine said something recently like, 'Well, I'd be willing to buy an American car, but I have a 1992Toyota and it still runs perfectly fine. Could you imagine a Ford running fine without major repairs after 16 years?' And we just laughed and laughed.

Holly said...

American cars used to be reliable as all hell. I think that stopped about the time AMC went under.

However, what I find interesting and bizarre is, the Mexican and Canadian bailouts discussed in those articles appears to come from the money that the executive branch is doling out against legislative veto.

So, the whole schtick about "saving American jobs" is becoming comically vague and dubious.