Remember back in the “good old days of 2009 when the Obama administration stepped in to keep two of the largest American auto companies from going under? Remember how, even though it was only a loan program and a temporary stock purchase that it was characterized as a “taxpayer-funded bailout”?
Well check out these headlines:
Here’s my message to Jim DeMint, James Inhofe, Richard Shelby and Tom Coburn:
SUCK IT!!!
Here’s DeMint from December 2008:
The argument that is being made today is that people will not buy a car if a company is in bankruptcy, is a bogus argument. Americans are not stupid… They know that this bailout is only a temporary solution. They’re much less likely to buy an American car with this bailout plan.
No, dude, YOU are stupid as has now been proven.
Here’s Shelby:
I think this is a bridge loan to nowhere. This is a down payment on many billions to come… The first, the first down payment, it’s just the beginning. It’s an installment plan of billions and billions and billions and we don’t know the end game.
Uh…actually — NO! Bzzzt! You’re wrong!
Here’s Inhofe, perhaps the worst of all:
“In Congress, we are currently considering an irresponsible $14 billion bailout of the Big Three auto manufacturers,” Senator Inhofe.“This legislation empowers one unelected bureaucrat, which has come to be known as the ‘car czar,’ to spend money how he sees fit to keep the auto companies afloat and make the U.S. government part owners of the companies…
“The ‘car czar’ will also be empowered to dictate how these companies are to structure and run their business. This is a bureaucratic, command and control approach to industrial policy in lieu of market forces and Chapter 11….
“Why do we now believe that government bailouts and government ownership of shares of these companies without a clear idea of what these companies will do to significantly alter their business models, at least until well into next year, is going to be a successful venture? The history of even the last couple decades clearly shows that the approach we are considering in this legislation has a track record of waste and failure. We need to ask ourselves: Are we not simply throwing good money after bad? More importantly, are we not simply throwing taxpayer dollars down the drain?
In response to your last question, Two-Word Answer GuyTM sez: No, dumbass.
Guess what, assholes? You were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. These bridge loans are well on their way to being paid back and the Obama administration estimates that 1 million jobs were saved by doing it.
GM is nearly ready to issue their Initial Public Offering (IPO) and the magic number for their stock price in order for the U.S. government to regain all it’s money is $114 per share. That’s certainly an achievable goal if they keep on being profitable.
And profitable they are. They made $1.3 billion in Q2 2010. Chrysler made $183 million. Ford, who didn’t accept any government funds, made $2.6 billion.
It won’t happen immediately but the government will recoup the money it loaned to Chrysler and GM. And let us never forget that Republicans in the Senate filibustered passage of the legislation that allowed this to happen. This was, in my mind, never anything more than an anti-union position taken by Republicans. They have almost no votes to lose by kicking union workers in the teeth time and again because union workers know that the Republicans will never get their backs or look out for their interests.
Republicans: Once again, on the wrong side of history. Once again, on the wrong side of working Americans.
I’m just sayin’…
