Members of Congress wanted Detroit’s Big Three automakers to redo their homework before they resumed begging for a government bailout today. So how’d they do?
It doesn’t matter. If a Senate Banking Committee on the matter Thursday was any indication, America’s automakers failed badly enough and pose such a danger to the economy that lawmakers seem less focused at this point on whether they’ll give the automakers a bailout, and more so on how they’ll do it.
“We’re not going to leave town without trying,” committee chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said of their efforts to provide funding for General Motors , Ford Motor and Chrysler.
What’s dangerous to the economy is three obsolete industrial behemoths draining the nation of capital at a time when capital is more important than ever. GM and Chrysler need to reorganize in bankruptcy and see if they can make a go of it. If not, so be it.
Commentators on CNBC said it best yesterday. If the automakers get this $30 billion, will they be back for more? Yes, they will. Let natural business processes and the Chapter 11 laws take their course. If one of the big three fails, the others and the whole market will be the better.
And don’t forget, for the Democrats this is really a payback bailout for the union. Hence, the determination to find a way to do it.
Absent major reorganization (Chapter 11) any money thrown at the Big Three will be wasted. Remember any Senator or Congressman who supports a non-Chapter 11 financial boondoggle for the Big Three and vote to throw them out at the earliest opportunity. Such Senators and Congressmen are are nothing less than thieves stealing your money.
So many misconceptions about the auto industry. So many know-it-alls claiming to have inside knowledge. Disgusting Congressmen sitting in judgement while they preside over budget shenanigans and deficit spending at historic highs. I’m worn out with you Mr. Jeffersonian, and the axe you grind against American automakers. As if the foreign automakers don’t get subsidies in the hundreds of millions and tens of billions from their home governments and from states like Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina and more. Such rank hypocrisy. Since when, friends, did it become the moral thing to declare bankruptcy and renege on good faith commitments? I am not a spokesman for anyone, but I know something about the auto industry, and I’m tired of the baseless assumptions chanted here over and over again. I’m sick to death of the bashing. Find another scapegoat.