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.