Yesterday, the White House released a statement indicating how the Obama administration plans to handle the hairy situation involving American automobile makers. It is nothing more or less than what has come to be expected from our new leadership: another hard poke of the government's finger into (what is left of) American private industry. Earlier this year, President Obama gave General Motors and Chrysler a chance to develop plans for restructuring. If their plans were acceptable to the administration, they would receive up to $39 billion in loans to help that restructuring process. Well, President Obama deemed their plans unworthy of the money and is now giving them an additional couple months (30 days for Chrysler, 60 for GM) to try again with their planning process; this time with the help of Obama's team. If their plans are found to be acceptable at the end of this period, further "investments" of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars will be provided to boost them along.
The ins and outs of this proposition are not what are most important here. It's not even the fact that we'll be losing more money to government spending (we best get used to that). The problem is that our government is gobbling up as much control and power that it can get its greedy beaks on. Where is this power going to end? If President Obama's "team" is now responsible for developing companies' business plans, what is to stop them from setting the wages that American workers are paid? What is to stop them from dictating what brand of equipment businesses use or where they setup shop? Don't think they'll do it? It's already underway courtesy of our friend Barney Frank. That article explains how the government can control how much employees of companies who received taxpayer funds are paid. Don't even think about saying, "well, that's just because they're talking about 'bailout' money." It won't stop there. Who returns power after it has been obtained? Just watch.
