Cheat Sheet
The Best In Brief
Why the Auto Deal Broke Down
Amid all the predictable views about the failure of the auto industry bailout in Congress—Michael Moore: “It’s class warfare”; Wall Street Journal editorial page: Bush should just say no—comes a piece of canny political understanding from David Brooks on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. “Why should the unions or why should anybody make the concessions if they're going to get the money for free the next day from the White House?” he asked. “The bottom line is the American people or the political process has decided we can't let the auto industry fail. So if that's your underlying rule, how do you force restructuring?…Do we just keep giving $14 billion here, $14 billion there? Who's going to force the restructure?” The solution? As veteran Wall Street Journal Detroit correspondent and Pulitzer winner Paul Ingrassia said on the same show, “A government-sponsored restructuring that would be parallel to a bankruptcy restructuring, but not called bankruptcy, would be the only thing that would get the changes made in the compressed amount of time.” Over to you, Mr. President.
Partner Sites: Expedia| Hotels| Hotwire| Urbanspoon| Vimeo
I found David Brooks' comments to be predictable anti-labor spin -- they only make sense if you already share his rarefied worldview and prejudices. The notion that the UAW is the principal villain in this story -- or even that they would be the principal beneficiary of a bailout -- is absurd. Issues of fairness aside -- and they are legion in this case -- forced wage cuts in an economic downturn make no sense whatsoever -- the entire point is to increase consumer spending, not to depress it. I don't know who wrote this piece for the Daily Beast, but is nothing more than pseudojournalistic cant.
When do we get to put Bush and the rest of these bastard's head's on a stick and piss on them?
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.