Would you like a guaranteed $4,500 for your trade in (regardless of what it is really worth) on the condition that you buy a new car? The House of Representatives apparently thinks you will. Well, 298 of its members do:
By a 298 to 119 vote, the House of Representatives passed a measure to give car buyers up to $4,500 for their old cars, as long as they buy a new one.
Not sure the Senate Republicans are going to go along with another “stimulus package” especially since this one does nothing for Wall Street bankers, but you have to admit this is a rather amazing action by the House. If you’re wondering why this bill got the fast track, I imagine it might have something to do with people screaming at the staff members of their Senators and Representatives about all the auto plant and dealership closings we’ve seen over the last few months. At least that’s what McClatchy is reporting is the reason for this sudden urge to help you out with your new car financing:
House leaders from both parties are also protesting auto company decisions to close dealerships. Chrysler plans to close 789 dealerships by mid-June, or about a quarter of its total, after giving owners about a month’s notice. GM plans to close about 1,100 dealerships by October 2010.
Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the House majority leader, complained that it was “irrational to close down dealerships which average 53 employees per dealership, and could quite possibly increase unemployment by 100,000 people if, in fact, it does not serve the economic interests of the manufacturers.”
Yes, I can already predict that the standard wingnut response will be that the Democrats are trying to control the decisions of automakers and socialize the automobile industry. Frankly folks, I say let them have at it. I know a few die hard Republicans in the retail end of the automobile business, people who are big time Limbaugh fans, but on this issue I think they may tell their ideological comrades to “Go Cheney yourself!” Funny how conservative principles about the free market and limited government and outraged shouts about “Tyranny” like this . . .
. . . go out the window when your own job and your own livelihood is dashed upon the cruel and rocky shores of the Free Market.
Because, yes, the market will self correct, but that doesn’t mean those jobs and those factories and those dealerships will ever return if left to the workings of “market forces.” The “free” market respects no international borders, and the freer it gets the greater the risk that you will be one of its victims some day. And your politics will matter not one whit on that day, whether you are a member of Bush’s “Ownership Society” with your own business and your own employees and your own subscription to the Limbaugh Letter, or you’re some poor union (or more likely non-union) blue collar worker for said owner.
History has shown us time after time that capitalism which is unrestrained inevitably crashes and collapses into economic turmoil, just as it is now. We let the devotees of Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan and Milton Friedman have their way since Ronald Reagan was elected President and the evidence is stunning. The greatest income inequality in history. Solid well paying jobs sent overseas. Scoundrels on Wall Street permitted to fleece everyone they could get their greasy hands on, even themselves if they were stupid enough to buy into their own horse manure about the “financial products” they were “marketing.” For what the free market giveth a few, it takes away from the many, and these days unless you are some Citicorp or AIG senior executive getting your millions in bonus payments courtesy of the US taxpayer, it has likely taken a great deal from you and most of the people you know.
So let the batshit crazy free marketeers roar about how Obama is destroying their world. Even the carnival barkers and con artists have moved on. All that’s left is an increasingly insane, increasingly shrill group of faith based ideologues safe and secure behind the walls of their conservative welfare pavilions dreaming of the day when they were the masters of the universe, and bleating helplessly into the whirlwind which their ideas and their policies created. One wishes they were sincere about “Going Galt” if only so we wouldn’t have to ever hear or see them again on our TeeVees. Sadly, however, if there truly is one eternal verity of the universe, it is that discredited conservative pundits and think tank “fellows” shall always have a free seat on the network cable “news” shows to continue spouting their noisome nonsense for generations to come.
Ps. Don’t spend that $4,500 before the Senate gives it to you. I’ll frankly believe it when I actually see it.
