Senators, Please Think! Kill the Big Three Bailout Bill.

As much as I appreciate the Republican “Gang of Five” who are doing their dead-level best to squash the execrable Big Three Bailout bill that’s in front of the Senate right now, I take issue with what appears to be an alternative.

Under his [Tennessee Senator Bob Corker] plan, which was the subject of intense negotiations with Democrats, the automakers would be required by March 31 to cut their debt obligations by two-thirds — an enormous sum given that G.M. alone has more than $60 billion in debt.

The automakers would also be required to cut wages and benefits to match the average hourly wage and benefits of Nissan, Toyota and Honda employees based in the United States, and the companies would have to impose equivalent work rules. The plan would bar any pay for idled workers other than “customary severance pay.”

That certainly does address many conservative concerns about the Dems plan, which basically amounts to the government dictating how carmakers would do business and what kind of cars they would be allowed to build well into the future, but it doesn’t address the biggest problem.

The government has no right at all to take your money or mine and simply give it to someone else because they come begging for it. There is a place for taxation because there are things a government needs to do, but stopping a company – even a big company – from reaping the consequences of its own failures sure as heck ain’t it.

The reasons the Big Three are in trouble today are pretty obvious. They spent years making cars that people found less reliable and less desirable. They let their customer service slip to the point where the insanely strong brand loyalty they spent decades building is almost gone (Seriously, when was the last time you heard a real Ford v Chevy argument?). They promised compensation plans to their employees’ unions that their income simply could not support. They got fat and cocky and didn’t adjust to the competition who built an entirely new manufacturing base in America right under their noses.

What’s worst, though is that neither the Big Three nor the UAW have shown any recognition (that wasn’t smacked out of them by a two-by-four) that they need to fundamentally change the way they do business. Why should they, though, if the bulk of Congress seems eager to reward their arrogant incompetence with billions of dollars that they didn’t earn?

Essentially, this bailout, even Corker’s new terms, is the equivalent of putting the Big Three on life support. They’ll take the money and wheeze on for a little longer, but the same problems will still exist, only this time the problems will be entangled with a few dozen government bureaucrats working under a shiny new “Car Czar”. Can anyone show me where a company got healthier by adding a shiny new level of government control over its daily operations?

Senator Corker’s heart is in the right place, I’m sure, but the heart is not where this decision needs to be made. Republicans need to think and remember that government can not ever make a terminally-sick company healthy again. It is beyond Congress’ power to do anything but burden us and our children with an obligation that we should never have to carry, no matter how badly they may want to help. Republicans have to stand strong over the next couple days and kill this bailout so hard that it never gets up again. There will be pain for a year, perhaps, but in the end we will all be better off.

Other Posts of Interest:

• The Bailout is Now A Trillion Dollars More Expensive than World War II. The Madness Must Stop
• Don’t Let Congress Build Our Cars, Please?
• It’s Not Pork. It’s a Sweetener!

Tags: Bob Corker, Conservatives, Government Bailouts, Republicans

Category: Conservatism, The Economy and Your Money