The New GM - Goverment Motors

This is a sneak peek at the April 3, 2009 Friday Digest available at The Patriot Post:

President Obama took the unprecedented and highly dangerous step this week to get intimately involved in the private sector by forcing out General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner and giving Chrysler 30 days to merge with Italian automaker Fiat or face bankruptcy.

The move came after the federal government decided that the restructuring plans proposed by both embattled automobile companies did not go far enough to guarantee their continued viability. GM is now in the hands of COO Frederick Henderson and a leadership team that will be ultimately crafted by the White House. GM will receive financial support from the government for 60 days, during which time, Obama noted, “My team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan.”
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How is it possible that a federal government that is piling up an $11 trillion deficit is capable of making the right decisions for GM? We’re talking about an auto company that reached its nadir in large part because it could not meet enhanced government fuel efficiency standards or the excessive demands of a labor union that walks hand-in-hand with the current administration and the liberal Congress. On the surface, Wagoner’s forced exit was a trade to ensure that the company would continue to receive taxpayer funds, but at heart it was clearly a sacrifice at the altar of the socialists. Now that the government has its hooks in GM, it can force the company to produce cars that meet the excessive environmental and energy standards of the liberal crowd, in other words, cars that are impractical that no one will buy.

A similar situation took place with Chrysler. Why of all companies was Fiat picked to be the majority stakeholder for the smallest of the so-called Big Three automakers? Fiat is famous for making lightweight fuel efficient vehicles that are all the rage in Europe. They don’t sell that well in America because they are so flimsy they are dangerous. If the design sense that made Fiat famous abroad and infamous here at home is applied to Chrysler, then the company might better be allowed to slip into bankruptcy, which may happen anyway if it can’t craft a deal with the cardboard car company from Italy in 30 days.

Obama said, “The United States government has no interest or intention of running GM.” Yet, that is exactly what he has in mind. And you can bet that this little experiment in socialism won’t end with the auto industry as long as the inmates are running the asylum in the Swamp.