Obama Steps Further Into Detroit Troubles

As I observed here, a week ago, the President-elect is already breaking promises on the economic front. I wrote,

"It's official. The Democratic Congress and its new partner, the inexperienced President-elect from Illinois, are going to ram a GM rescue bill through Congress ASAP.

This may be a record for the shortest time period in which a newly-elected President ran away from his most prominent campaign promises and morphed into someone else entirely."

Trouble is, current President, George W. Bush, and the Congressional GOP members, aren't playing ball.

Boo Hoo!

Looks like GM is going to actually have to try to run its business until January 21st, 2009, without Federal aid. How shocking!

Treasury Secretary Paulson has announced, long and loud, that the TARP will not be used to lend to GM for ordinary operations. President Bush isn't budging on the issue, either. No executive orders or special spending actions will be coming from him.

It seems, too, that most business press and a groundswell of ordinary American opinion is against selective aid to GM without a bankruptcy filing and, probably, the head of Rick Wagoner as the price for any Federal help.

Democratic Senator Carl Levin, no less, replied, in answer to a question yesterday, that he would have no problem with requiring Wagoner to resign as a condition of any Federal aid to GM.

But the important points which are now clearly shaping up are these. The current Republican administration is not going to take the fall for bailing out a GM which does not file Chapter 11. And many Americans are wondering just why a poorly run, for decades, auto maker deserves to be saved, rather than simply letting shareholders take the loss, sell off the good parts, and provide direct aid to the affected workers, as citizens, not UAW members.

This means that Frisco Nan has a problem- as does her colleague, the rookie Senator from Illinois. Both decry corporate welfare. But GM is largely a vehicle through which UAW members get their loot.

This means the Democrats are caught between a rock and a hard place. No Republicans in sight to take the fall. Nan will have to swallow, hold her nose and personally vote to ladle cash to GM in order to save union jobs. This won't be lost on anyone. Her partner in crime, Obama, will be signing the bill. Literally and figuratively.

Don't think independent voters will not wonder what in God's name is going on here.