Here I am, a taxpayer among taxpayers grovelling in the miasma of the middle class and hoping like Hell that things will get better with the new Administration.
Then I listen to the heads of the Big 3 automobile manufacturers on C-Span as it was re-run last night, begging for 28 Billion Dollars from the lame duck Congress – with no plan, no reasonable means of payback and literally no respect for the folks like us who the expect to buy their gas-eating SUVs. And these guys, as was pointed out by just about every television news program, all flew into Washington DC on their individual private jets at a cost that would probably pay the health-care costs for workers at one of their factories.
Give me a break! Aren’t these the guys who killed GM’s original Electric Car program in 2006, when they had a successful vehicle being driven by 800 2-year testers, most of whom were happy as bunnies in a carrot patch with their cars? Then they were recalled and destroyed ending the program, most likely at the whim of the oil industry.
And now they’re telling us how they will get us to the new hybrids and electrics and natural gas babies in the near future (but we don’t know how they will do it or what the money will really be spent on) and won’t we pleeez look the other way and give them the money.
You know, I was suspicious in the last month when Paulson told congress to authorize the $700 Billion for the mortgage bailout because, if we didn’t in 48 hours or so the world would end. So Congress kicked over the first half of that money and…lo and behold… we don’t know how it was spent. Not on bailing out mortgages, because that situation has gotten worse. And Paulson now wants the rest so his banker buddies and AIG won’t miss their Christmas Parties.
Who do we trust? Who do we believe? I’d feel much better if I knew that Obama has announced the appointment of a new Treasury Secretary that I thought could take all these guys by the scruff of the neck and shake some changes into them. Like sell the private jets. Like put your senior executives (and Chairmen) on the same salaries as Union employees. Like make all financing totally dependent on having plans and keeping promises.
Why do I fear that this will never happen?
