Senate GOP Dooms Auto Bailout
Despite the urging of the White House, the Senate GOP is set to kill the auto bailout bill passed by the House. A bad move for the country. A bad move for the GOP.
You can debate the efficacy and ideological purity of the bailout all you want. The bottom line is that a GM or Chrysler bankruptcy will put at least one million people out of work right away and the ripple effect will be wide and long. The resulting crisis among suppliers would drag down Ford and some of the transplants as well. That will be devastating in this stage of a very fragile recovery. (If we can even call this a recovery.) Neither consumer confidence nor the markets will get any traction.
As for the GOP, part of their recent electoral set back was the distinct feeling that the Republicans were out of touch economically. Sen. McCain's lack of a credible or cohesive economic policy only reaffirmed the drift of the party from economic fundamentalists to shills for Wall Street and the wealthy. Add this to the fact that the GOP backed a very expensive bailout of major banks (and at least one insurance company) and you have a very nice pitch that the GOP has abandoned even the appearance of representing ordinary Americans. (Mind you, the GOP's support for blue collar America was always a wafer thin bit of cynical image manipulation.)
You can debate the efficacy and ideological purity of the bailout all you want. The bottom line is that a GM or Chrysler bankruptcy will put at least one million people out of work right away and the ripple effect will be wide and long. The resulting crisis among suppliers would drag down Ford and some of the transplants as well. That will be devastating in this stage of a very fragile recovery. (If we can even call this a recovery.) Neither consumer confidence nor the markets will get any traction.
As for the GOP, part of their recent electoral set back was the distinct feeling that the Republicans were out of touch economically. Sen. McCain's lack of a credible or cohesive economic policy only reaffirmed the drift of the party from economic fundamentalists to shills for Wall Street and the wealthy. Add this to the fact that the GOP backed a very expensive bailout of major banks (and at least one insurance company) and you have a very nice pitch that the GOP has abandoned even the appearance of representing ordinary Americans. (Mind you, the GOP's support for blue collar America was always a wafer thin bit of cynical image manipulation.)
posted by Jack Reed at 5:05 PM
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