Why Won’t The President Love Us? And By “Love”, I Mean “Shower Us With Favorable Legislation and Cash”

This Michigan columnist, Stephen Henderson, is sad because President Bush didn’t give him all the handouts he really, really wanted. He says that the next President “must pay attention to our problems”. Because, goodness knows, you can’t possibly solve your problems unless the President pays attention to them.

I can’t help myself. This guy is a perfect example of why our government is such a bloated pestilence on the land. Let me do a little quoting after the jump.

GOP contenders Mitt Romney, John McCain and Mike Huckabee were all at the show because they know cars still matter around here. They were there to demonstrate how they understand our challenges, empathize with our difficulties and have solutions to our problems.

Oh, boo me a freaking hoo why don’t you?

How on Earth does this guy get out of bed and face the horrible travails of morning traffic without the steadying hand of a President upon him? What torture he must face in the grocery store trying to decide whether to buy Wheaties or Corn Flakes all by himself!

When, oh, when will there be a President who can understand and empathize and maybe decide that Frosted Flakes are more his thing anyhow?

How sad.

They are hoping for a payoff in today’s voting. But the payoff for Michigan won’t come until there’s a president who “gets it” on the troubles facing U.S. manufacturing in general and the auto industry in particular, and is willing to focus on those issues, something Washington has barely done for eight years.

They apparently aren’t the only ones hoping for a payoff. Seems a certain columnist is hoping to get a little of the cha-ching himself.

You know, this guy should be on his knees praying that the government ignores manufacturing and the auto industry. He should be begging the government to get as far away from his beloved industries as possible. He had no inlking how much government involvement costs those industries and, from the tone of his writing, he doesn’t much seem to care. I wonder if he’s ever figured out just how much government “help” costs him and his neighbors there. He should probably take a quick peek at all those regulations that have been heaped on the industries that have little to do with anything reasonable and a lot more to do with protecting someone else’s financial turf. He could spend a little time on a column explaining exactly how much the big companies in Michigan spend on lobbyists and why. Perhaps as an illustration, he can show a couple of examples of how a company might find themselves crushed by a caring and empathetic government that’s “working with” other companies.

Or, perhaps he’ll just continue to whine.

The next president needs to invest time and political capital in rebuilding America’s industrial base and incentivizing American manufacturers — and workers — to embrace the technology and knowledge-based economy of the future.

Michigan needs a president who’ll take real action against the currency manipulation, unfair labor standards and protectionist trade policies that give foreign companies a ridiculous and largely unearned advantage over their American counterparts. And it needs someone to push back against Washington’s worst instincts, the ones that seek to move the automakers by punishing them rather than working with them.

You know what incentivizes (and by the way, a more stupid word you can not find, except possibly for the word “utililize”) manufacturers and workers? Money. And oddly enough, there’s already a means in place by which a manufacturer can make money and give that money to workers for their services. It’s called capitalism. I’m not entirely sure that our dear columnist is familiar with the concept, but a quick turn around Wikipedia might help him just a little.

Let me offer an alternate suggestion for what Michigan needs. Michigan needs a President who will leave Michigan alone. Kind of novel, isn’t it? Automakers don’t need someone who will work with or against them. They need a President who will veto any attempt by Congress to do either one because neither option is ultimately good for the automakers or the people of Michigan. I invite the columnist to look around Michigan and tell me where the “help” Washington has given the auto industry in the past has really helped. Are the automakers better or worse off after a few decades of “working with” Washington?

Instead of begging a bunch of would-be Presidents to shovel more “help” into Michigan, he’d be a lot better off demanding, as he should as a citizen, that Washington leave them the heck alone so that they can find prosperity the only way it can be found, withough Washington’s help.

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Category: General