More Washington hypocrisy and the State takeover of the auto industry
The
hypocrisy which surrounds the proposed bailout of the U.S. auto
industry is reaching heights rarely seen, even in Washington, D.C.
The automakers are being held to a totally different standard than is
the UAW, which is, at least, partially responsible for the dire
financial straits that the car manufacturers find themselves in. The
politicians who support the bill, and are revealing themselves to be
Statists of the worst sort in the process, are not calling on the
union to make the sorts of changes they are demanding of the
automakers. The UAW is not being told that it must make the wage and
benefit concessions that are needed if the Big Three are to regain
any type of long-term financial stability. This point has been
driven home, in no uncertain terms, this morning after last night's
failure of the Senate to pass the bailout bill. Not one of the
Democrats who are so eager to expand the power of the Federal
government, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, Senators Christopher Dodd, Diane Feinstein, Debby Stabenow,
Carl Levin, and others, have called the UAW to task for failing to
make wage and benefit concessions. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger
stated yesterday, prior to the Senate vote, that the union would not
make any concessions in the area of wages and benefits. Yet the
Statists are strangely silent about the union's role in the breakdown
of the domestic automakers' financial positions.
Not one of
the supporters of the bailout of the auto industry is willing to take
on the UAW. Instead, supporters of the move, such as Michigan's
Governor Jennifer Granholm, are loudly shouting that the Senate
Republicans killed the bill as an act of revenge against the UAW.
Americans are being told that failure to nationalize the industry,
euphemistically called “making bridge loans to the companies,”
will result in the total loss of America's manufacturing base. One
of Governor Granholm's arguments, made in an interview on NPR's
“Morning Edition” today, is that failure of one of the Big Three
will “cause a ripple effect throughout the economy” in the form
of failure of suppliers to the industry. The governor then went on
to state that such failures would have an adverse effect on foreign
automakers such as Honda and Toyota because they are also customers
of the same companies that supply parts to the Big Three. There is,
evidently, no chance that the parts suppliers will shift production
to meet the demands of the foreign companies, or move into new fields
of endeavor.
The UAW has
been told that it doesn't have to make wage and benefit concessions
as, according to Governor Granholm, “the union has already done
that.” This is patently untrue as UAW wages and benefits are still
significantly higher than those of the non-unionized employees of the
foreign auto companies. Why is the union not being required to make
changes in the same way that the Big Three are? Why is UAW President
Ron Gettelfinger not being hauled in front of Congressional
committees to answer questions, such as why union workers should be
exempted from the pain being suffered by those of us who aren't paid
outrageous wages for performing jobs that have been made as simple
and repetitious as possible? Why should most Americans be required
to finance the lifestyles of a relatively small number of employees
of companies which face dissolution no matter how much money is
“invested” in them by the State? The answer is simple: union
votes are more important to Statist politicians than is the overall
health of the United States. Hypocrisy reigns supreme in Washington
and ordinary Americans will pay the price in further economic
troubles and loss of yet more freedom as the State absorbs another
chunk of the economy.
Of course,
all of the above was written before word came from the White House
that President Bush is going to allow money from the $700 billion
Wall Street bailout to go to the automakers. The Big Three will
become simply another arm of the government and the American people
will pay a high price in economic terms and loss of yet more freedom.
This doesn't change the points made above, but it does mean that the
Statists have scored another victory through the use of lies and
distortions.