Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Auto Bailout

Union Payoff

Instapundit links to an article in the Fiscal Times by Liz Peek entitled Obama's Auto Bailout Was Really A Hefty Union Payoff.

Ms. Peek asks, Where did that money go? Mainly, it went to paying off debts owed by GM and Chrysler, and – in an historic distortion of our bankruptcy proceedings – to securing the pensions and livelihoods of UAW workers. It turns out the real debt was that of Mr. Obama to organized labor, which had ponied up some $400 million to help him defeat John McCain.

"Mitt Romney, for the record, advocated for a process not unlike the one that ultimately led to GM’s restructuring – absent the union giveaways. In his 2008 op-ed, which he titled “The Way Forward for the Auto Industry” but which The New York Times published as “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” Romney calls for new labor agreements to make domestic car companies competitive, noting the $2,000 per vehicle cost disparity between US makers and their overseas rivals.

He pushed for a change in management, improved relations between labor and the bosses, which might be helped by getting “rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms,” as well as profit sharing or stock grants, and called for investment in new technologies, “especially fuel-saving design.” Never could he have imagined that his thoughtful assessment of the industry’s future prospects could be held against him. But then, he might never have imagined a campaign so perilously built on distortions and half-truths, and so eager to run away from the reality of the past four years."

1 comment:

Terri Wagner said...

I'm sick of bailing out unions anyone else? I don't have the money.