Bush bails out automakers
George W. Bush committed another fiscal abortion:
President Bush announced $13.4 billion in emergency loans on Friday to prevent the collapse of General Motors and Chrysler, and said another $4 billion would be available for the hobbled automakers in February. The entire bailout is conditioned on the companies undertaking sweeping reorganizations to show that they can return to profitability.Automakers already received a $25 billion bailout in September. There are no guarantees that they won't be back next year for more money. There is no oversight and no teeth to this at all, not that it should be supported if there were.The loans, as G.M. and Chrysler teeter on the brink of insolvency, essentially throw the companies a lifeline from the taxpayers that will keep them afloat until March 31. At that point, the Obama administration will determine if the automakers are meeting the conditions of the loans and thus will continue to receive government aid or must repay the loans and face bankruptcy. And Democrats and the union said the deal was unfair to auto workers.
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The loan deal requires the companies to quickly reduce their debt by two-thirds, mostly through debt-for-equity swaps, and to reach an agreement with the United Automobile Workers union to cut wages and benefits so they are competitive with those of employees of foreign-based automakers in the United States.
Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform sent a letter to Bush regarding the bailout that just said, "No."
When will the nightmare of this administration end?
Comments
After we get into the nightmare of the next administration, we might get all nostalgic when remembering this one.
Posted by: Dutch | December 19, 2008 04:54 PM
The Administration ends in 32 days.
The nightmare will be with us for awhile, I think.
Posted by: Doug Mataconis | December 19, 2008 04:54 PM
I was under the impression the Executive Branch could not spend money...I thought that was the Legislator's responsibility.
Don
Posted by: Don | December 19, 2008 06:52 PM
You are correct Don, it is the duty of the legislators to allocate money and the Executive branch is supposed to ask for the funds. But in this case every law is being subverted to focus on spending the taxpayers money to feed two auto makers so they can prepare to file for bankruptcy and using our money to do it.
And it seems that this nightmare of throwing our money to the abyss will never end. It will only end when common sense returns to Washington and that is not likely.
The Doctor
Posted by: The Doctor | December 19, 2008 09:02 PM