...come today courtesy of the Obama administration:
"President Obama announced Monday that struggling automotive giants General Motors and Chrysler will be given a "limited" period of time to "restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional taxpayer dollars." The federal government will give GM "adequate working capital" over the next 60 days to work in conjunction with the administration in developing a better recovery plan, he said. Chrysler will be given adequate capital to continue operations for 30 days while completing a merger with automaker Fiat. The president said that if Chrysler can come up with a "sound agreement that protects American taxpayers, we will consider lending up to $6 billion to help their plan succeed."
Hmmm. Wow. Well, obviously we're talking about a significant expansion of governmental power here into the private sector. This is all in addition to the Obama administration forcing out GM's CEO, too. And of course never mind that Obama says the government doesn't want to run GM or the other auto companies--the truth is that the government is doing just that, helping to decide who runs GM and basically having a veto power over its new business plan--one which is required to satisfy Obama administration planners before it can go into action.
But what really will interest me about all this is something simple. We have always criticized our liberal and progressive friends on the question of whether they knew anything about running a business. We conservatives always claimed they didn't know squat about running a business. Progressives always claimed they knew businesses and the economy, and we didn't.
Well. Soon we'll find out. The liberals and progressives in the Obama administration want to write business plans for the auto industry. They want to help decide who should run GM. They're going to help run the auto industry. OK. Let's see how they do. Let's see if our liberal friends really know how to run a business. Note too that this is a big moment especially for President Obama. It could be argued that HE now owns GM, and what happens to it. (His rhetoric certainly indicates that he wants to own it and this entire crisis--look at how often, in his statement today, the president used "I", "my", etc.)
What if GM goes under? Won't Obama get part of the blame? Shouldn't he?
And if and when they demonstrate that they don't know how to run one, you can bet we'll let them know about it.
