Evidently the Republican Party likes being a Southern regional party. Because they wouldn’t be doing this if they ever hoped to win Michigan, Ohio, or Pennsylvania ever again:
The Senate on Thursday night abandoned efforts to fashion a government rescue of the American automobile industry, as Senate Republicans refused to support a bill endorsed by the White House and Congressional Democrats.
The failure to reach agreement on Capitol Hill raised a specter of financial collapse for General Motors and Chrysler, which say they may not be able to survive through this month.
What was the sticking point? Well, Democrats and the White House had hoped to give employees until 2011 to accept severe cuts in wages and benefits — cuts the UAW had agreed to. Senate Republicans said no, we want those cuts now:
After Senate Republicans balked at supporting a $14 billion auto rescue plan approved by the House on Wednesday, negotiators worked late into Thursday evening to broker a deal, but deadlocked over Republican demands for steep cuts in pay and benefits by the United Automobile Workers union in 2009.
Now, I may have missed it, but back when we passed the financial bailout, do you remember Republicans hand-wringing about how we had to ensure that the companies significantly cut white collar compensation at those banks?
Come to think of it, do you see anything here suggesting that the GOP is interested in cutting white collar salaries at GM, Chrysler, or Ford?
Of course not. The GOP saw this as a golden opportunity to screw over unions and blue collar workers, and as such, they’re managing to screw everyone over. If there’s good news, it’s that — and I can’t believe I’m typing these words — the Bush Administration is a good deal more sane than the Senate Republicans:
The proposal to loan $14 billion to Detroit’s struggling automakers collapsed late Thursday night but the Big Three may get some money anyway.
Bush officials warned wavering GOP senators that if they didn’t support the legislation, the White House will likely be forced to tap the Wall Street bailout to lend them money, two Republican congressional officials told CNN earlier.
Of course, that would be money given to the automakers with no strings attached.
So heckuva job, GOP. In one vote, you managed to alienate blue collar workers, damage the economy, and ultimately create a situation in which you get a worse deal for your side than you otherwise would have by being adults. That’s the sort of leadership we’ve come to expect from you.
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All this talk on the right about how it’s unions that ruined the American auto industry makes me sick. It just really creeps me out how much right-wing talking heads seem to just despise working-class people. The same pundits will criticize the suggestion that CEOs and other high-paid white-collared professionals get pay cuts in the banking industry.
Those Southern senators get an awful lot of campaign money from Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Volkswagen, all of which have a number of plants in their states. Now, what interest might those campaign contributers have in seeing US automakers go belly-up? I wonder….
You think the Republicans are crazy to dis the interests of three swing states?
How ’bout their willingness to abandon the entire youth demographic? The Senate Republicans all already up in arms about this latest rescue plan.
The current Republican party is so unlike the party I supported 28 years ago. It is petty, idiotic, spoiled, petulant, ignorant, and that’s just the words I could think of while my fingers caught up with the typing.
The real meaning of “Conservative” has long ago been lost on the GOP. The GOP is now the party of character assassination, “Hey, let’s talk about football!” (just got out of the car, listening to Rush Dumbaugh talking about the Steeler v. Raptors game), repeating over and over “We’re conservatives!” without having a f*cking clue what the word MEANS.
The GOP is now more concerned with winning or losing that producing results, and that is so absolutely NOT a conservative value that the modern GOP cannot be said to be “conservative”, with or without a capital “C”, in any form.
When concepts are called “conservative” or “liberal”, without regard for their implementation, that is not “conservationism” and the situation with the UAW, Detroit, and the present financial mess has solutions which are themselves “Conservative” and “Liberal”. But preventing the collapse of the American auto industry is not, in and of itself, one or the other.
Conservationism is not a “What” it is a “How”, and the ignorance of that basic fact is why we’re stuck in the present situation.
What I’d like to see is that the Federal government step in (and I can’t believe I’m saying those words) and provide guaranty financing for the Big Three. But only on certain conditions:
1) They enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy (which voids out/opens up all contracts, including but not limited to the union and executive compensation ones), and
2) Their current management and boards of directors are replaced.
An alternative/supplemental suggestion might be that instead of giving a certain amount of money to them set up a tax credit (not deduction, credit) of, say, $10,000 to anyone who buys a new car from them for a period of time. That way they get rid of inventory, keep their employees working, people get a bunch of new cars to drive around, etc., etc. It helps the companies out but puts the money in the hands of the people who paid it to the government in the first place.
Ron,
I was going to say that is a bad idea because that’s not enough revenue, but $34B is all of 1.4 million vehicles, or about an additional 50 days at 10 million annual units.
I hereby nominate you for Automobile Industry Bailout Planning Czar ;)
— Julie.