[BRIGADE] PJB: As GM Goes, So Goes the GOP
Published: Tue, 11/18/08
to stop by, and make a few comments on Pat's columns...
http://www.buchanan.org/blog
For the Cause, Linda
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As GM Goes, So Goes the GOP
By Patrick J. Buchanan
November 18, 2008
Understandably, Republicans are seething.
When Hank Paulson demanded $700 billion to haul away the trash in
the dumpsters of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs -- assuring us we
could hold a garage sale of the junk -- they rebelled. They acted
as the nation, by 100 to one, demanded. They killed the Wall Street
bailout.
The Dow quickly sank another 1,000 points, and, charged with
criminal irresponsibility by the elites, the GOP buckled, reversed
itself, rescued the bailout -- and was wiped out on Nov. 4.
Now we hear from Paulson that the $700 billion Congress voted will
not, after all, be used to buy up all that rotten paper on the
books of the big banks. Some banks are using the cash to buy other
banks.
So Republicans are right to be enraged. They are victims of the
biggest bait-and-switch in political history. But they are now
about to do something terminally stupid. With GM, Ford and Chrysler
teetering on the brink, they are turning a cold stone face to
Detroit and are about to follow the counsel of that quintessential
Bushite Dick Darman, who said of our computer chip industry, "If
our guys can't hack it, let 'em go."
America responded -- by letting George H.W. Bush and Darman go.
Are Republicans aware of what they are about to do?
When workers, execs, engineers, dealers, salesmen and suppliers are
all factored in, the Big Three employ 3 million people who
contribute $21 billion a year to Social Security and Medicare, and
$25 billion in federal income taxes. Add in all the businesses that
depend on the auto industry, and we are talking about one-tenth of
the U.S. labor force.
As columnist Tom Piatak of Chronicles and Takimag.com writes,
850,000 retirees, and their families, depend for pensions and
health care on the Big Three. If they go under, the burden falls on
us.
And to let the auto industry die is to write America out of much of
the economic future of the planet.
In a good year, like 2005, Americans buy more than 17 million new
cars, and West Europeans as many. Tens of millions in Eastern
Europe, Russia, China, India and Southeast Asia are now moving into
the middle class each year. These folks will all need or want one
or two family cars. If we let the U.S. auto industry die, that
immense and burgeoning market will be lost forever to America, and
ceded to Asia.
"Who cares?" comes the free-traders' reply. Japanese and Koreans
are setting up factories here. They can pick up the slack.
But that means Americans will work for and depend on foreign
companies for a necessity of our national life as vital as the
imported oil and gas on which our cars and trucks operate. All the
profits of the mighty automobile industry in America will be sent
abroad.
Before Republicans follow this free-trade fanaticism to their final
interment, they might study the results of a poll by Peter Hart:
-- Seventy-eight percent of Americans believe the U.S. auto
industry is highly or extremely important. Three percent think we
can do without it.
-- Ninety percent of Americans believe the death of the U.S. auto
industry would do great damage to our economic future.
-- By 55 percent to 30 percent, Americans favor federal loans to
save it. And by 64 percent to 25 percent Americans back
President-elect Obama's resolve not to let the U.S. auto industry
go under.
If the GOP blocks these loans, and the industry dies, the party can
forget about Ohio, Michigan and the industrial Midwest. For the
Reagan Democrats will never come home again. Nor should they.
By the choices we make, we define ourselves and reveal what we
truly care about. Thus, consider:
We bail out the New York and D.C. governments of Abe Beame and
Marion Barry. We bail out a corrupt Mexico. We bail out public
schools that have failed us for 40 years.
We bail out with International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans
and foreign aid worthless Third World regimes.
We bail out Wall Street plutocrats and big banks.
But the most magnificent industry, the auto industry that was the
pride of America and envy of the world, we surrender to
predator-traders from Asia and Europe, lest we violate the tenets
of some 19th-century ideological scribblers that the old
Republicans considered the apogee of British stupidity.
Nancy Pelosi is talking about tying loans to a restructuring of the
industry. But Congress is not competent to do that.
What needs to be restructured is the U.S. tax-and-trade regime.
Dump globalism. Instruct Japan, Canada, Korea, Germany and China
that if they wish to sell cars here, they will assemble them here
and produce the parts here. And we shall have the same free access
to and same share of their auto market as they have of ours.
To accomplish this, use the same import quotas and tariffs Ronald
Reagan used to save the steel industry and Harley-Davidson.
Reciprocal trade. Even Democrats like FDR used to practice it.
SOURCE:
http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/11/pjb-as-gm-goes-so-goes-the-gop/