HAZ-Matt

Yeah but Romney will just sing "America the Beautiful" and get elected...

jg95z28

I'm not so sure. While his staff might, Obama has quite often given the Republicans credit when they cross party lines and bipartisan policies are passed that help everyone. I believe he's even given them credit for starting the auto industry bailout prior to him taking office. (Sorry, I'm too lazy to look it up.)

Z28Wilson

I agreed that the bailouts were the logical thing to do, my problem was with who got stiffed and who benefited from the process.

Regardless, threads like these always get whacked/locked over in, say, the Lounge within a matter of minutes so it's surprising there is so much more leeway here. I can understand 95firehawk's point regardless of how little tact he used to convey it.

bossco

IMO I doubt that, the republican base is so fractured I think the democrats are going to have an easy win.

Anyways back to the regularly scheduled program.

HAZ-Matt

That was really just supposed to be a joke about him doing so this primary season not really a prediction about the actual election.

JasonD

guionM

Good point Bob.

There is a good article/commentary in Automotive News that touches on that.

Evidently, Karl Rove (I suppose who is the crackpot that started the uproar over the Chrysler Super Bowl ad) made the claim that Chrysler's superbowl ad was paid for by government money from the current administration. However, the commentary (written by Larry Vellequette) points out that all borrowed money was paid back to the Feds ahead of time, and that Chrysler owes the Feds nothing but eternal gratitude for saving the company.

The $1.3 billion that was lost was granted to them before the current administration came in which was a dig at Karl Rove's claim since he was Bush's political adviser in the 1st place.

This is one subject that doesn't fit into any conservative/liberal democrat/republican mold or even debate.

It was a democratic congress that killed any chance to rescue the US auto industry spearheaded by 2 red-blooded American republican senators who previously got federal and state taxpayer money for Toyota and Honda to build plants in their states. It was a republican president that saw the writing on the wall, and did an enrun around congress to keep General Motors from going into liquidation with Chrysler not far behind and to give his successor a chance to put something permanent together with no-strings-attached money skimmed from another program congress already approved (the big bailout of Wall St, a subject itself that stands labels on it's head). It was a democratic president that essentially blackmailed the UAW to not only accept massive cuts in workforce and pay, but also banned them from strikes as a determining factor in Fed help in saving GM and Chrysler.

So much for labels and stereotypes, huh?

Today, Chrysler and GM is doing better than ever, Chrysler paid back their debt early, the Feds are (rightfully) waiting for GM's stocks to recover so they can sellout.

Everybody won in this and both sides have something to crow about. The UAW got slapped into reality, American jobs were saved, our manufacturing base has been saved, American cars are competitive again, the Feds stayed out of the way and let those who knew what they were doing run things, taxpayer's money is getting paid back, states didn't fall into hopeless insolvency, and a economic meltdown was averted. Yet we still have people who either have amnesia or want to rewrite history.

Although I was no Bush fan, he derseves credit for taking action when no one else (on either side of the political spectrum) would.

Now that we have these lies about the Volt taking a life of it's own, and now yet a new lie about a Chrysler ad being a government paid Obama advertisement (minus Clint being spokesman, Toyota and Honda have had similar themed ads over the years), and various people still stuck on idealogy instead of reality, I'm glad Bush came out and said directly what was at stake, and the fact that not only does he have no regrets, but he'd do it again. I think a whole lot of ground is being lost by creating a lot of monster-under-the-bed and a boogieman-in-the-closet statements instead of capitalizing on the fact that one of their own got the ball rolling on saving potentially millions of jobs and making an industry accountable.



Finally (since Romney came up in this thread, this is the only political opinion i'll say here) with Romney's dad having been an automotive CEO, and Romney having actually been a governor of a state instead of some failed politician or an extreme idealist (therefore, knowing the impact on state budgets and the cascading negative effect of other neighboring states have in losing an industry as huge as the automotive industry), I'm convinced that he's saying he was against the bailout simply to appease the ideology-over-reality group that do the legwork, man the phones, and dish out the contributions which all polititians depend on for their livelihood... and why you have to look at a candadate's history more than what they say on a campaign trail.

Unlike the other morons that seem to be running, being the fact that I know Romney can add (let alone he that he no doubt understands risk management) I think if Romney was faced with 21% unemployment, the end of what amounts to most of the US manufacturing capacity, and an explosion of the federal deficit that would make the current defict seem like change in a car's ashtray, he would have been even quicker than Bush was in bailing out the industry.

97QuasarBlue3.8

I think ignoring the fact that the auto industry is HIGHLY politicized right now isn't doing anyone any justice. I suppose this could be the "Future Vehicle" discussion area ONLY, but how do you talk about new cars and their host of new, politically-driven technologies without talking politics, or even the current state of the auto industry?

Bailouts had bipartisan support, and I'm pretty shocked at the number of people who erroneously blame Obama as the single initiator of bailouts. Whether or not it was the right thing to do is a matter of personal and political opinion, but it's the choice that was made, and it wasn't done so singularly.

99SilverSS

It's kinda funny that one group claims to be against the government bailouts and yet enacted them. The other party is for the bailouts and will take credit for them even if they were not completely responsible.

It must be an election year!

jg95z28

I think one could easily argue that the auto industry has always been highly political.

JasonD

The point I have made in the past is that in order for the topic to remain, it needs to stay on the "automotive" side of political, and avoid the "political" side of political. I am sure everyone here is smart enough to know the difference, even though usually I am proven wrong. Having said that, carry on and post accordingly.

67 LS-1 & T-56

I can't more wholeheartedly or emphatically say that you are spot on Guy. Bravo.

Plague

If you recall, the bailouts really didn't have bipartisan support. Before Bush used the TARP money for the auto industry, there was a vote on giving bailout money to the auto industry. This passed, the house pretty much along party lines.

237-170
Dem Rep
For 203 32
Against 20 150

Now, it didn't make it to the Senate as it wasn't likely to pass it. That is when Bush decided to use TARP as a stop gap to make this work.


I would say that there was a little Republican support, but this was really bipartisan support. The President at the time did support it. That is all that really mattered. I am not trying to make an issue out of who started it or not, but don't forget how this actually went down in congress. Republican support for this was VERY VERY low.

5thgen69camaro

WHO are these people you keep claiming say the bail outs were strictly the "doings of the current administration."

You and others agree with some of Bush's quasi socialists actions that included banks then extended to auto industry, while I and many do not. I dont see how this can be discussed or even debated without delving into even further into political philosophy eg(conservatism, Liberalism etc. NOT to be confused with PARTY eg Republican, Democrat etc.) politics including what we feel the governments roll should or should not be in business than you have already.

Yeah I agree and thats sad. Thats why I now support Ron Paul but I seem to be in the minority given the results thus far.

guionM

OK.... here we go with the "socialist, liberal" labels.

So, we would rather label George W. Bush (of all people) a "quasi-socialist", never mind the man.... who has access to far more information than probably all of us combined, and then some....saw a catastrophy about to happen and acted in a way that benefitted the United States, than to put aside idealogy and note that if nowhere else, this is the one case where the results absolutely justified the actions, and the man who started it has no regrets even though it went against everything he believed in.

It's great that your view is that the government should sit idlely by and watch the country completely desintragrate into 21% unemployment, a wiped out manufacturing base, a non existant US auto industry, and such....fortunately, wiser people run the country, and you can continue to preach whatever political idealogy here, where the rest of the country is safe.

But, just the same, lets toss this idealogy and politacal labeling thing aside before you get this thread closed. Jason has been pretty clear where the line is.



Fact is, the help the industry got from the feds worked.

General Motors and Chrysler had no ability to borrow money. Bush stepped in and gave them money to keep them from caving in till a plan of action could be drawn up. I give Bush credit for that because anyone else would have simply passed the buck (and blame) to the next administration, and congress couldn't get anything together even with the same party running both houses!

Failure to do anything would have wiped out General Motors and shortly later, Chrysler, followed shortly via cascading effects, enough midwestern states to risk oblitering the economy.

Yet....both US car companies are doing extremely well today.

It was 2 different presidents from 2 different political parties that got this done. There are no labels here or political idealogy at play outside of those who want to create one.

Carl Rove already took the crackpot role.



The economy would have crashed far worse than it did, unemployment would have essentially doubled, and the US industry would have been decimated, the Us auto industry would have become extinct (instead of a recovered and highly competitive).

I'm terribly sorry if this doesn't fit in with name calling and labels, but I look at GM's far improved health far better cars and management, and the hundreds of thousands of people both directly and indirectly employed there, or that Chrysler not only is making profits but they also repaid taxpayer money years ahead of schedule, and the fact that it required 2 presidents from different parties to do what was completely opposite of what some of their more idealistic party members were saying then... again, I'm sorry, but... your name calling and label making doesn't wash.