Ok we all know the saga affecting the Big Three auto makers. Poor choices, plundering natural resources, not having any idea about what the consumer wanted, in other words the CEO's are ignorant assholes that have no business holding said positions. As I write the plea for a loan to tide them over is being televised. Has anyone noticed what dribble is coming from the mouths of our Representatives in Congress though?
You can call me a conspiracy theorist or Chicken Little all you want but look at the key players in Congress that are opposed either to a bailout of the Big Three or want to keep their fingers out of the $700 billion pie instead diverting monies from the $25 billion Congress has set aside for alternative fuel and energy projects.
Now that the Big Three are back on Capitol Hill with their plans, concessions, and offerings of first borns to Congress, all of a sudden there seems to be doubts and deadlocks as to whether America's last major manufacturing industry is worth the trouble. It didn't seem to bother anyone except a few Republican conservatives and Libertarians on the Hill when Paulson road throught the streets a couple of months ago with his equivilant cry of "the British are coming, the British are coming" (my apologies to Paul Revere). We immediatly coughed up $700 billion for bankers, brokerages and mortgage lenders that brought the economy crashing down. I cautioned then that this rush to give Paulson all this taxpayer money should be considered and debated carefully and if passed, it should come with a lot of strings and checks that at the time Reid, Pelosie and others assured us were there. Then yesterday the GAO tells us no one knows where the monies given have gone and no one is keeping track of it.
In an article today Bloomberg News reports that Pelosie in a telephone call to Bush wanted to help the Big Three and wanted the money to come from the $700 billion TARP fund. Bush, Paulson and Republican members of Congress want the money to come from a $25 billion appropiation for alternative fuel developement. Now stop me here if I go to far, but how does alternative fuel developement relate to financial bailout when monies approved for a "financial bailout" are off limits? The one's opposed to this use of TARP funds are the same one's who opposed the subsity for alternative fuels, something this country and planet need.
Rachel Maddow both last week and this week has carefully put forth the idea of a kind of class priviledge pay off in the allocation of funds. Give the white color high contributers to campaigns anything they want, but when it comes to an industry that is more representative of blue color working folks, they have to grovel, beg and jump through hoops for a fraction of the bankers amount. The best they get then is only a definate "maybe". I see an additional element here as well. All the last minute Executive orders changing regulatory rules for the nation's top abusers of the ecology, and a few additional gifts to Big Oil seem are GWB's "fuck you" to us all. Again, look at the people who want to give alternative fuel developement monies to the auto industry to help them meet payroll and pay creditors. Is this a hidden last minute attempt to scuttle the developement of alternative fuels which the oil, coal and power industry oppose?
Chicken Little I may be but I don't trust the players involved here. Frankly dispite the auto industry's self inflicted wounds, they have done more to help this country grow, and more to insure a solid future then the banking industry has. It was the banking industry who brought us to our knees here and now, in the Great Depression and in 1987 with the Savings and loan mess. Maybe we as a people, especially all of us involved in Obama's grass roots victory should let Congress know that this is a non negotiable desire of the people. I'd rather the sky fall on Congress then yours or my head.