Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander was shocked, shocked when the decision was made to build the government’s new dream car at the Lake Orion plant near Detroit. The three plants competing to build Obama’s mini Greenmobile were Janesville, WI, Spring Hill, TN, and Lake Orion, MI. Michigan won out as a favor to Governor Granholm and the very powerful and rich backers of the Democratic Party, the UAW. I wrote about the GM and Chrysler takeovers being orchestrated political restructurings aimed at serving the larger interests of the US government. When the government, along with the pay-for-favors thieves in Congress and special interest power players, nationalizes and runs a business, decisions will always be made with political considerations/favors being first up on the agenda. Decisions will never be made on the basis of profit-and-loss and winning and retaining satisfied customers.
Set to emerge from bankruptcy within weeks, GM declined to disclose the factors it weighed in picking Orion, but said the process was free of political meddling. “It’s in the best interest of all involved to not discuss the selection criteria for the small-car plant,” said GM spokeswoman Sherrie Childers Arb. “All three plants have individual merits, but when all told, the Orion plant scenario provided the best business case.”
The federal government’s outsize role in the new GM has already raised concerns about the mixing of politics and commerce. Lawmakers, such as Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, have squeezed GM to reject plant closures in their districts. Obama administration officials have prodded the car giant to develop smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
Governments are not in the business of profit-and-loss; they are in the business of steal-and-spend. So there’s no profit motive with the New GM. Political players such as Obama, Barney Frank, and others will rape this company dry as long as they can keep pumping taxpayer money into the company to fund their self-serving causes. Their pet causes include rebuilding and renovating the tattered unions, making them a potent political force once again; pushing an EnviroCommunist, redistributionist agenda onto middle-class America; and empowering high-ranking, democratic congressional members so that they may direct the booty toward their home districts. A liquidated GM (and Chrysler) would have meant the end of the UAW, the Democrat Party’s largest and most consistent allies, and the loss of zillions of jobs for the democratic constituency.
The new GM has a bottomless pit from which to keep sucking up cash, unlike Circuit City or Linens ‘n Things, two companies that had to liquidate without government assistance. Imagine how blessed a New Circuit City or New Linens ‘n Things would have been with the same favoritism? What each of these companies lacked – that GM offered - was a powerful union, a defined and generous Democratic support base, and most importantly, the ability to fulfill very specific functions for the new regime’s environmental agenda that will reign in American lifestyles and grant favors and profits to corporate state giants who help to shape and manufacture the government’s centrally-planned visions.
