Why do Republicans in general want the car companies to fail...?

Question

Is it really just about union busting... or have republicans finally realized that corporate welfare and corporate bailouts are even worse than social programs.

Personally, since my field (music) was pretty much destroyed in the last 20 years and no one bailed us Out, I couldn't care less about the auto people. But I do wonder at the Republlican mentality here.

Funny how the only car companies they want to rescue are the foreigns, which have no unions...

What are your thoughts about this paradoxical situation?

Answer 1

65% of the people in the United States are against the bailout. Seems that includes a lot more than just Republicans.



Anyway, the unions are reaping what they sowed. The UAW gave 12K to Republican races and almost $2M to Democrats. Why should anyone who is a Republican be inclined to support anything that would help the UAW?

Answer 2

Part of success in business is knowing when to cut your losses.

Sometimes you have to pull the plug on something even if it's near and dear to your heart and it might have some short term negative effects.



You have to lay some folks off, take the losses, look like a failure in your community when you shut down the store or factory, etc.

But if you keep going, you'll never turn the business around. EVER.



Most regular people hear the word "bankruptcy" and think of the absolute worst because they look at it in terms of personal bankruptcy which people might do once in their life when they lose absolutely everything or they've been very irresponsible.

But business bankruptcy can be a valuable management tool for restructuring.

Most companies that use it, pay their bills and negotiate with creditors to simplify complex contracts that actually work out better for both parties.

Even people like Donald Trump have used it to move from times of struggle to getting companies back on their feet.

It keeps companies from having to close and let all the employees go.

They don't liquidate their assets.

The airlines did it and kept flying.

In some cases, companies spin off some of their assets and smaller companies are created which become successful on their own.



The Republicans are thinking like businesspeople here.

This is potentially a path to success - not a way to encourage the same behavior that has led to repeated failure.

It will force the automakers to change their structure and operations.



FORD has already done this.

That's why they didn't need the bail out.

If they can enter into a new deal with the UAW, they'll be profitable within a year or so.

They're almost there.



Remember what Einstein said:

The definition of INSANITY is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

That's what Congress has been forcing the automakers to do.

We have to stop it.

Answer 3

What foreign car companies is the proposed “bailout” supposed to help?



Where’s the corporate welfare here? The UAW has 180,000 active workers and about 540,000 retirees and dependent spouses who receive pensions and health care benefits. If the Big Three fail, those 180,000 active workers will lose their jobs and the pensioners will lose their benefits. And there are millions of workers in the supply chain and associated industries who will suffer a similar fate. Is that what you want?



Maybe most important, the automakers produced the tanks, planes and much of the artillery that enabled us to win World War II. They are our manufacturing base. We cannot afford to lose them. Remember, Obama’s maternal grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line during WWII.



My idea of “corporate welfare” is giving tax credits to big oil companies to invest in alternative energy. That’s like giving a chicken to a fox so the two species can get to know each other. Saving the automakers is an effort to protect the livelihoods of millions of people. The automakers’ managements has really screwed up, and the UAW and other unions got just about everything they asked for because their “managements” didn’t know or care about what their compensation packages would do to the companies their members depended on.



The UAW’s officers are like members of Congress. They have private pensions, not Social Security. They have much better health care plans than their members do. If the Big Three go down, the UAW’s fat cats are secure. It is their members and pensioners who will pay the price.



Look at the UAW’s “elected” officials the way so many of us look at our government. Look at the salary, health care and pension benefits of a U.S. Senator making $165,000 a year and compare them to those of a high-level corporate executive making even $250,000 a year after working for only six years. Only a fool would take the package of that corporate executive.



We NEED our autoworkers at least as much as they need us. If you want to see the greed, don’t look around; look up at the unions’ management.

Answer 4

The car companies have already failed. All this 17 billion or so does is make sure the wealthy criminals who run those companies get their golden parachutes, and can steal everything not nailed down, and a good deal of that which is.



These are crooked, corrupt, irrelevant companies, whose executives should really have been prosecuted decades ago for fraud. The Japanese and Germans are having difficulties, and they've done some subsidizing, but they'll survive. These idiots CANNOT SURVIVE under any circumstances, because the public is no longer the ignorant collection of morons these dolts relied on for more than five decades.



I have worked with European and Asiatic auto makers for years, and one thing of which Americans remain totally ignorant: In their home countries, the auto unions are FAR MORE POWERFUL than in the United States, in addition to making a good deal more money. This propaganda campaign to slander unions, in which many ultra right wing scum have been active, wouldn't even be LEGAL in those countries. And the executive criminals behind would be...well, VERY uncomfortable. Forget these lies about "foreign unions" being weak or nonexistent, that's American fascist b.s., totally without basis, and downright insane.





The degenerate, incompetent corporate morons who ran the former "big three" GUARANTEED that forty years ago or more. The current batch of useless imbeciles merely "holds the fort". Had these nitwit sluggards (actually, their daddies and grand daddies, these slime are ALSO into nepotism and corporate incest) listened to the Deming studies more than fifty years ago, this wouldn't have happened.



But they chose to be ignorant, unresponsive, and to demonstrate the fourth-rate criminal greed and complete lack of innovation which marks them as the totally unproductive parasite they are.



True, a certain level of fascist filth will try to blame all this one the UAW and associated union. But, gutless sissies of the scab (anti-union) American reactionary right, let me mose this question to you chickens**t, lazy maggot bags: Why is it that German AND JAPANESE auto companies, who pay their workers MORE in their own countries, are doing MUCH BETTER than the American companies? That's right, in Japan, the big controversy is about Japanese brand cars being made with "cheap American labor"...



I can tell you why: Because the filthy dead weight at the top destroyed these companies, and did so for the lowest, most selfish sort of greed.



That's reality.



There's no right or left or Democrat or Republican to it, that's what happened.



And the unions played no role whatsoever in the failure of these incompetent, dishonest companies and their disgusting, unreliable, fourth-rate gas gobbling PIGMOBILES.

Answer 5

As a Republican, I oppose all bailouts. Congress does not have constitutional authority to prop up failing businesses with taxpayer dollars.



That being said, with concessions from every facet, I don't have a problem with this particular bailout. I'm still pretty angry about the Wall Street bailout. I certainly do not want to see the Big 3 fail, nor do I want people out of work; however, I'd rather see 500,000 people take a pay cut, than 500,000 out of work with no pay. If my employer mismanages its business, I'm going to be out of work, simple as that. The Big 3 management (NO golden parachutes, those contracts should also be dissolved) and the UAW need to tighten their belts and make their company successful again. American labor will benefit from success and so will the stockholders. That would be an ideal situation and I hope GWB didn't just flush 17 billions dollars down the toilet.

Answer 6

A Capitalist system rewards successful operations and punishes poorly operated ones. That is called "Consequences" and Accountability for you actions.



I know liberals think everybody should do what they want and if is not a success, it is not the fault of the individual, it is the fault of society--so society should pay for every poor decision made. That thinking has failed every time it has been tried and will this time. Where were all of these liberals when the Buggy industry went into decline, were there not hard working Americans put out of jobs when demand for the Buggies dried up.



This is about more than busting a Union, it also includes busting BAD Management for BAD Decisions, which the stock holders could fix if they would but I guess the stock holders are happy losing 90% of their money--or 100% if they keep the current management in place.

Answer 7

it sure sounds like it specially the southerners they get these offshore companies come in here give them free land almost big tax breaks .put the people to work as cheap as they can get away with .an most of people at works at Mercedes or BMW can afford to buy their own cars they make .it's getting to be the American way if you're not management level for a politician and a one turn a living .way you think the government doesn't stop the illegals they come across a border is a know they were cheaper .will bomb was gonna have to increase welfare taxes to be a more Americans on it .

Answer 8

I'm a Republican and I don't want them to fail! I think they need to take bankruptcy and rebuild to become more efficient and in line with the times. They have made many bad choices, not kept up with the trends and produced way more than they could sell. Their have been a lot less cars sold over the last four to five years, people are keeping them longer because for one they are so expensive. We own vehicles from both General motors and Chrysler(jeep) . We like the ones we have but the truck we have has over 100 thousand miles on it, which by the way consumer reports said yesterday the two top selling over all vehicles in America where the Ford F150 and the Chevy Silverado. The trucks that liberals hate so much.

Answer 9

Really? Republicans want to auto makers to fail?

I don't see it that way. I see that the republicans want the automakers to stand on their own. If that means reorganizing in bankruptcy, then that is what needs to happen.

What I do see is that the UAW wants their cake and eat it too. It is their jobs on the line, and they won't even talk about concessions. Shame on them. There are many other people across the country, who are hurting financially. For the UAW to act the way they are, makes me think they are blackmailing the compamies and the government. Blackmail!!!!

If the repubs are union busting, then more power to them. Unions have destroyed many industries, steel, coal and they put a hurtin on the airline industry also. And then look at the low quality education that unionized schools give to our children. I have seen teachers unions go on strike during the active school session. What does that show the children. Give us what we demand......or else !!! Blackamail !!!!! Even happens in areas where the tax base barely supports schools.

ANd I don't see any of the foreign companies begging for billions of dollars. They seem to make good quality vehicles at better prices than the domestics. THe only difference I see is the unions, blackmailing!!!!

Answer 10

Why are the Democrat supporting Corporate bail out this time? Because the Almighty Union told them to?



I oppose the Government bailouts unless The Government caused the problem. The 'big three' automakers could have stood up to the union GREED.

Answer 11

No one wants auto companies to fail. Yours is an unfair and inappropriate characterization. Conservatives are generally opposed to bailouts. It is not the role of government to get involved in private enterprise.



The US auto companies are not competitive because their wage and legacy costs are out of line with competitors operating in this country. Both management and Congressional Democrats are afraid of the unions. Bankruptcy is the only way to void the unfair labor contracts. Obviously union leaders are not going to give up anything.

Answer 12

How can you say that the auto bailout is socialist but back the banking bailout? Sounds like hypocrisy to me.



Edit: I wasn't saying you did. I was talking about the few people above me that called it socialist. Sorry dude, that was kind of ambiguous.

Answer 13

The bailouts are about as socialistic as anything I've witnessed in this country in fourty years!

Corperate welfare is just another way of saying "theft from the working class to give to the wealthy" and is wrong on so many levels.

I am not so opposed to unions as to government interfering in the free market - thus making it some wierd hybrid system instead of capitalism, which has made us the premier nation in the world.

Answer 14

Republicans in general do not want more tax dollars going down the drain in yet another round of welfare/bail-outs for the auto industry. Republicans in general want the companies to enter bankruptcy -- which is not failing but is a business move -- so they can renegotiate contracts.



No one is talking about rescuing the foreign car companies, which employ Americans at good wages with good benefits and are still able to build cars people actually want to buy.

Answer 15

this should be contained in the politics class. in spite of the undeniable fact that the bail out failed miserably because they nevertheless filed financial disaster --- GM and chrysler. jobs are nevertheless lost. so then why bailout? thats the question

Answer 16

I don't think they want the car companies to fail. They just want to make sure that any money loaned to the companies won't be wasted. Which foreign car companies have they rescued? There really is no reason to bust the unions, there memberships are dwindling rapidly and there political influence is fading. The union leadership knows this and that is why they are screaming for attention.

Answer 17

I am a Republican but I feel the the government needs to do something to help. If the car companies do not get Help from the government I will not vote for a republican again. The Government has pretty much ruined the economy. You can not trust any of them.

Look how screwed up ILL is. Lie rs ,Cheater.s They will do anything for money.

Do you honestly think other states are any different?

Answer 18

Are you responsible for your action? Why aren't the car companies? If you couldn't pay your bills for what ever reason you would have to go into bankruptcy court. Why do you want to give big business a break on the back of the taxpayer?

Answer 19

You said it, they are only worried about the foreign companies that have plants in their states. They are notoriously for the white collar workers and never for the blue collar workers. They could care less about the 3 million middle class workers who will be out of work if the big three go under. That is just the way it is. Besides, not too many of the people who work for the big three or their suppliers would vote republican anyways. So it isn't like they are disenfranchising their own constitutes.







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BTW:

To all of you who don't think that the foreign companies are having a hard time too, look it up, their home countries are giving them money to get through this awful economy. They are having to keep vehicles in the ports because they are not selling either. Bankruptcy won't work, who wants to buy a car from a company that might not be around next year? Not to mention all of the suppliers and mom and pop shops who rely on the big three. They won't make it. The main reason that the big three are having such problems right now is because the banks are still not giving out money. You can't sell a car to someone who can't get a loan. Even if they have good credit, the banks aren't giving anymore. If you all think our economy is bad now, think about this...3 million plus more people on the unemployment lines. It won't be pretty!





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The UAW HAS taken big concessions during the last two negotiations. It takes a while to get them into affect though, nothing happens over night.

Think about this too,

If you get paid overtime,

thank the union.

If you get sick and vacation pay,

thank a union.

If you have a clean and safe working environment,

thank a union.

If you consider yourself middle class,

thank a union.



I wish people would know what they are talking about before they rag on a subject that they in fact know nothing about! That "subject" being a lot of hard working American's that support this country.

Answer 20

Maybe it's about not bankrupting the next generation of Americans by passing the buck to them to payoff debts that we can't afford right now.

Answer 21

Filing for bankruptcy does not mean failure. It mearly means they have to restructure, cut dead wood (the UAW), and move on.



The foreign car companies do not need rescuing. Where did you get that?

Answer 22

the big three never gave campaign contributions when Republicans ran for office

Answer 23

They are anti-union which is the same as anti-US labor force.



They also subsidize Toyota and BMW.

Answer 24

Just to set the nob above me straight with the first answer, the Japanese government has in fact been giving the Japanese car makers assistance. they are hurting as well.