Thoughts from the House debate

I watched some of the House debate last night on CSPAN. An important, yet obvious pattern emerged. Every Democratic or Republican in favor of the bill was either A) from the state of Michigan or B) in a region where auto suppliers employ the townspeople. Makes sense...but here are some "yay" arguments for the bill that I thought were interesting:

• Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) challenged the notion of a "car czar", citing that no bureaucrat in Washington can micromanage an entire auto industry. A very valid point. Barney Frank's response? That at least the "car czar" is accountable to the President, while a bankruptcy attorney would be accountable to no one. What? I ask: how is that an apples-to-apples comparison? A bankruptcy attorney is simply there to oversee restructuring of ASSETS and come up with a plan for the companies to meet their debt obligations, not to tell the companies which cars they should make and what technologies they should develop. This was an absolute ridiculous argument by Frank.
• One Representative from Michigan decided to make a comparison to the aid received by New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Her argument was that New Orleans received 100+ billion for aid, and the citizens in Michigan help contribute to that, therefore the favor should be returned to Michigan. She went on to say that the "devastation" felt by Detroit was equal to that of Katrina. She said that with a straight face. Wow, how do you even respond to that? Katrina was a horrible natural disaster. The failure of the Big 3 happened in large part because of poor labor contracts, poor management, and poor products. It just so happens that the credit crisis pushed them over the edge. To parallel that to a natural disaster is ludicrous.
• Another argument I heard from Dennis Kucinich was that the auto industry was vital to our "national security." Really Dennis? Just when I thought Kucinich was coming around to sanity, he pulls this stunt. I'm not disputing the importance of the auto industry to this country, but to pull a Bush-like tactic of justifying it with "national security" is really grasping at straws, especially from a left-leaning Democrat such as Kucinich.
  
• Going along those lines, it was said over and over against that the auto industry is our only industry left and that we need to protect it. Kucinich went as far as to say our reputation of a "superpower" is at stake if we do not save this industry with taxpayer dollars. I almost fell out of my chair when I heard these words uttered. I present this question in response: what good is it to retain an industry that burns through billions of dollars per month and produces a product that no one wants? Just to say we have an auto industry? That is absolutely asinine. I really wonder sometimes if these arguments represent the true feelings of the representatives in Congress, because if they do, we have real trouble moving forward.
• Yet another argument was "every other country supports their auto industry, why not us?" Again, this is the United States of America. Since when do we model our economic policies after other countries? We're supposed to be the leader, not the follower.
• Finally, this argument bothers me the most. There is this notion that if these companies slip into bankruptcy, they will cease to exist and every autoworker will lose their job instantly, along with all of the supplier jobs. This is simply not true! Bankruptcy exists for a reason! If I'm an auto worker and I'm thinking about the long-term viability of my job, I want my employer to be as strong and financially sound as possible. Perhaps I get laid off for a year...that comes with the territory of being in an extremely poor economy. However, once we weather the storm and the auto industry is viable again, some of those former workers are likely to be hired back. Another issue at stake is the true cost to every single autoworker for this bailout. Not only are they putting up their taxpayer dollars to bail out their employers, but they will have to work extra hard post-bailout in order for their employers to pay the government back! So essentially, every automaker is paying double to save their employers. Sounds like a raw deal to me.

The good news is the Senate seems to have woken up. At the current time, they don't seem to have the votes, and some Senators have vowed to filibuster the bill. One Senator even called the bill "ass-backwards." Wow, the voice of reason! You go Senate.