White House May Bailout Automakers Anyway
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Bush, Business, Cars, Congress
After the Senate put a halt to the automaker bailout yesterday, the White House has announced today it may bailout the automakers itself with the money approved for the financial bailout.
Nice to see that all the debate in Congress was just a pageant and the Bush Administration will, once again, do whatever it wants, never mind the separation of powers.
Given the broad powers bestowed by TARP on the executive branch, I imagine the White House won’t have any trouble “legally†releasing funds to the automakers.
But the move does bring into question why Congress was ever involved in the first place. Professional courtesy?
With the way AIG has used its bailout money, I shudder to think how GM might be allowed to use its slice.
This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 and is filed under Bush, Business, Cars, Congress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Alan,
Look, we aren’t privy to the back room negotiations here, but I just listened to Sen. Corker who led the Rep. caucus, and am in the middle of hearing from Mr. Gettlefingr, president of the UAW, who is giving his side of what went on. Two things I’ve concluded from what they both said: First, this was a done deal until the Senate GOP contacted the UAW directly and asked for an unprecedented meeting to agree on a couple critical issues they wanted resolved before they voted. Secondly, the UAW gave detailed, factual renditions of the events while the GOP Senator spoke of broad, general, idiological differences he and his colleges had with the UAW’s plan for restructuring the Auto industry.
Sound familiar? Isn’t this a repeat of what happened before the Congress voted for the Financial aid package and the House Repubs, revolted from their leadership and sunk the vote? WTF – what is it about the Republicans that cause this 11th hour blow-ups of all negotiations taken up by Congress? Whether u agree with this side or that side, why do they feel the need to enter each cause with this poison pill option they always unveil in the 11th hour?
Seems to me with that with the last gasp of power they cling to they will do whatever they can to accomplish one of their key goals; bust the Unions once and for all. They couldn’t do it (or much else of any good for the country) while they were in control, so now they desperately try one last time.
December 14th, 2008 at 7:58 am
This was a done deal before any of the A-holes from Senate GOP decided to stand against it – it was nothing more than political posturing. The majority of those GOP wankers represent states with numerous foreign automakers in their constituencies. They came out against the bailout with the full knowledge that the Bush administration, or the Fed Reserve at a minimum would have to provide the investment to Detroit. These GOP clowns aren’t conservatives, they are nothing more than spineless political opportunists who would rather support political agendas than agendas supportive to the long term interests of the American people. Their political descent into impotency will only increase, and frankly it couldn’t happen fast enough. Where the hell are the true conservatives?