{"id":13514,"date":"2012-04-30T05:35:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T09:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=13514"},"modified":"2012-04-30T05:37:06","modified_gmt":"2012-04-30T09:37:06","slug":"this-slogan-only-works-if-you-ignore-the-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=13514","title":{"rendered":"This Slogan Only Works If You Ignore The Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Free Beacon<\/a>\u00a0posted an article today reminding us of some inconvenient truths about the government bailout of the automobile industry. Since one of the campaign slogans of President Obama’s campaign this year will be, “Osama Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive,” it might be wise to take a look at some of the facts surrounding the auto bailout<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

The administration has already written off $7 billion in taxpayer losses in the American takeover of Chrysler and General Motors; those losses are expected to climb as high as $23 billion\u201427 percent of the $85 billion spent on the bailout.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the bailout is widely credited with saving the two companies, increasing taxpayer losses have made it nearly as unpopular in 2012 as it was when Obama was elected. More than half<\/a> of Americans still disapprove of the auto bailout compared with 61 percent<\/a> in 2008.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aside from the taxpayer losses involved, there is the violation of bankruptcy laws. We have laws for a reason–if they are wrong they need to be changed (these particular laws are not wrong), but until they are changed, they have to be followed.<\/p>\n

As was pointed out at rightwinggranny<\/a> in June of 2009, in bailing out Chryster, laws were broken:<\/p>\n

The issue here is the secured debt.\u00a0 The government is trying to pressure those who hold secured bonds to accept less than the value of the bonds so that other creditors can be paid.\u00a0 We need to remember that one of the basic principles of bankruptcy law<\/a> is that secured creditors (who loaned money only on the contractual promise that if the debt<\/span><\/a> was unpaid they\u2019d get specific property back)\u00a0 get paid off in full before unsecured creditors get anything.\u00a0 To do anything else is a violation of the\u00a0US Constitution and its rules on private\u00a0property rights.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Laws were broken in the auto bailouts<\/a> in order to hand the companies over to the unions. Some Americans remember that. General Motors is alive, but aside from the taxpayer losses, the government and the unions have much more power in running the company than is appropriate.<\/p>\n

The article at the Free Beacon further reports:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came in and forced these companies into pre-packaged bankruptcy where unions were made whole and creditors were squeezed out,\u201d the expert said. \u201cIn normal bankruptcy they don\u2019t rearrange stakeholders rights willy-nilly\u2026there\u2019s no way those union contracts would have been untouched.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Labor is not the only constituency to which Obama has tried to appeal by championing the bailout. \u00a0\u201cAfter three decades of inaction, we\u2019re gradually putting in place the toughest fuel economy standards in history for our cars and pickups,\u201d Obama said in the same February speech. \u201cThat means the cars you build will average nearly 55 miles per gallon by the middle of the next decade\u2014almost double what they get today.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obama tied the bailouts to strict environmental standards that have led to increasingly efficient cars, an achievement he has used to woo green advocates. The move has affected more than just the environment, establishing \u201cdangerous\u201d legal precedents, according to some legal experts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

General Motors may be alive, but it is a whole lot less free than it was before President Obama said, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.”<\/p>\n

<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Free Beacon\u00a0posted an article today reminding us of some inconvenient truths about the government bailout of the automobile industry. Since one of the campaign slogans of President Obama’s campaign this year will be, “Osama Bin Laden is dead, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1993,2257,117,500,121,852,562,1142,285],"class_list":["post-13514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-automotive-industry-crisis-of-2008-2010","tag-bailout","tag-barackobama","tag-chrysler","tag-general-motors","tag-general-motors-bailout","tag-obama","tag-osama-bin-laden","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13514"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13517,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13514\/revisions\/13517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}