Obama’s Auto Bailout Was Really a Hefty Union Payoff

Liz Peek: 

Where did that money go? Mainly, it went to paying off debts owed by GM and Chrysler, and – in an historic distortion of our bankruptcy proceedings – to securing the pensions and livelihoods of UAW workers. It turns out the real debt was that of Mr. Obama to organized labor, which had ponied up some $400 million to help him defeat John McCain.

The Obama administration strong-armed the auto companies’ creditors into accepting undeniably unfair terms – terms that saw pensions obliterated for non-union workers but saved for those carrying a UAW card. Terms that saw non-UAW shops close but UAW factories stay open. Terms that doled out ownership in GM with political favoritism as a guiding principle.

Via Instapundit.

The Auto Bailout Was a Failure

The Democrats' GM Fiction

Democrats like to say GM is alive because of Obama, but that bumper sticker slogan grossly oversimplifies things:

Admirers of the GM bailout should bear in mind that it was the Bush administration that first decided to intervene at the firm, offering a bridge loan on the condition that it draw up a deeply revised business plan. President Obama’s unique contribution was effectively to nationalize the company, seeing to it that the federal government violated normal bankruptcy processes and legal precedent to protect the defective element at the heart of GM’s troubles: the financial interests of the UAW. It did this by strong-arming GM’s bondholders into taking haircuts in order to sweeten the pot for the UAW. The Obama administration also creatively construed tax law to relieve GM of tens of billions of dollars in obligations — at the same time that Barack Obama & Co. were caterwauling about the supposed lack of patriotism of firms that used legal means rather than political favoritism to reduce their tax bills.

Mitt Romney’s proposal for a structured bankruptcy would have necessitated considerable federal involvement, too, but with a key difference: The UAW contracts would have been renegotiated, and GM’s executive suites would have been cleaned out, placing the company on a path toward innovation and self-sufficiency rather than permanent life support.

Plus:  More from Stephen Green.

 

689 Reasons to Defeat Barack Obama

That's it?

Auto Bailout

Even the Treasury Department is now admitting that they expect the taxpayers to lose $25 billion on the auto bailout.  And yet Obama wants to repeat the government's bailout of the auto industry in every industry.  

And Yet We're Still Not Allowed to Call Him A Socialist?

Obama:  Let's have a government bailout, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.

Of course, considering the auto bailout was such a great success for the taxpayers.

Geithner, Treasury Drove Cutoff on Non-Union Delphi Workers Pensions

Matthew Boyle: 

Emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company.

The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.

The internal government emails contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures. They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding the termination of those non-union pensions, and that administration figures violated federal law.

Obama's Public Equty Record

Patterico:  Government Motors Costs Taxpayers $35 Billion.

Of course, it would be even worse if Obama friend, Warren Buffett, hadn't invested $256.5 million in the company.

Only 1001?

1001 Reasons to Vote Against Barack Obama.  Feel free to add to the list.

Credit to Instapundit for the link (who in turn gives credit to Bill Whittle). 

2 Days to Go

And the latest NBC/WSJ poll continues to show that more Americans would be pleased if Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional.

By contrast: a Bloomberg poll found that a majority of liberal law professors believe the mandate is constitutional.

Government Motors

Mickey Kaus asks: 

Why would GM cut R & D, the source of its future growth, in order to show profits in the short run? Is something happening in, say, November, for which the 26%-government-owned entity might want its balance sheet to look artificially rosy? …. P.S.: Latest sales figures show GM’s market share has declined again. Total sales are flat for the year to date, and you’d have to say the GM arrow is pointing down because Toyota is surging back into the market after a series of setbacks (earthquakes, floods, stuck accelerators).  

The very fact that people are now asking these questions reveals the problem with the auto bailout.
Well, that and the fact that we are set to lose $30 billion from it, despite Obama's past assurance that we would make money on the deal.  At least his union friends got paid off.

Hat tip to Vodkapundit.