Well, our wonderful government officials on both sides of the aisle decided the existing business laws did not satisfy all of he promises they made, and the taxpayer had to keep the Big 3 auto makers afloat "for the good of the country." There were all of these top-flight economists and know-it-all bigwigs who sold the bailout story again and again.

Now we are $110,000,000,000 in debt solely on this venture (as we had to borrow the give-away money), and what has it got us? GM and Chrysler are now in bankruptcy proceedings anyway - exactly what Congess and the White House (past and current) said wouldn't happen - and we have other bailouts in progress.

How did this happen? Well, Congress bypassed all of its rules regarding hearings, fact-finding, et cetera and, with the White House's encouragement, bulldozed the money-spreading by selling fear in a manner that would make the fictional Professor Harold Hill envious.

Can you imagine ever spending $100,000 of your money without ever reading the sales contract? Well, the "Big Bailout Bill" was ramrodded through Congress with barely enough time to print it, let alone read it. Hearings and fact-finding were never done as "not enough time" according to our representatives, and they even had the gall to say that they voted for it not only without reading it, but that if they didn't, the country would go "tilt." The BS story was that there wasn't time to think, only to act, and that doing anything was better than doing nothing. What a crock!

Well, now that 2 of the Big 3 have declared bankruptcy in spite of it all, when can we expect more bankruptcies from cash recipients of bailout money? What do you think?

Please remember all of the BS stories from our congresspersons come the next election day. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue - It's an American issue.

Did not believe in bailouts. Do not believe in bailouts. Will not believe in bailouts.

Yoda

A member of the loyal opposition

PS Bailouts from aircraft with a parachute are acceptable and under certain conditions, encouraged.

I have not in the past, present or future, believe in the hand-outs, er I mean bail-outs. Also, not to steal this thread, I don't believe how such a small percentage of unions (what is it 12% of working force? ) Have such control over congress.

Keedy

The next time GSA, DOD, DOJ, or one of the other largish federal agencies goes out on a bid for fleet automobiles, what o you think the chances are that Ford gets the contract? I can just picture the guys on NCIS or Criminal Minds chasing the bad guys in their Americanized Fiats. Somehow, though, I'll bet those parades of black SUVs that we see speeding throughout NW DC don't disappear.

Originally Posted by Keedy

I have not in the past, present or future, believe in the hand-outs, er I mean bail-outs. Also, not to steal this thread, I don't believe how such a small percentage of unions (what is it 12% of working force? ) Have such control over congress.

Keedy

The union leaders promise the vote, and back it up with campaign contributions. That gets attention from any candidate.

Originally Posted by Keedy

I have not in the past, present or future, believe in the hand-outs, er I mean bail-outs. Also, not to steal this thread, I don't believe how such a small percentage of unions (what is it 12% of working force? ) Have such control over congress.

Keedy

This auto bailout will cost us much more than we will ever find out. I still work for USW and I can't believe that we were sent official letters about one month ago to get in contact to anyone that will listen and have them vote against the bailouts. I'm just finishing a month of staying at my Village home. In that period of time I have gone through 3 quarts of oil and one quart of Tranny fluid in my 2000 Caddy Seville with 75,000 miles. Oh I drove the Caddy about 300 miles in that period. I'll keep my Japanese cars.

Include me as one against bailouts. The government, regardless of party control, should not be in the business of owning or co-owning business. One of the problems is where do you draw the line? Do you bailout GM and AIG but tell the guy who only has 1,000 employees that he is not big enough? Imagine how those 1,000 taxpayers would feel when he closes up shop.

Can you imagine being given a huge chunk of money? No strings attached? No plan for what the money is to be used for? Or who gets it? No objectives or expectations? And if you run out or don't know where it went you can come back and ask for more?

Forty years ago when the government took on the railroads and consolodated them into what we know as Amtrack....it was said then the railroads should be on the right track in less than 10 years. That was 40 years ago....they lost over a billion dollars last year.

In the last few days in the plethora of GM news I thought I had heard that someone did a calculation of how many cars the new GM would have to produce to generate the pay back to be free from the government. The end result confirmed it as an impossible mission numbers wise. So how does the media get away with repeating, again tonight, about the new GM and what it could be in a "few" years.

Not sure who is smoking what but smells too much like political BS....as usual we the people sit and nod....uh-huh!!

BTK

I never spoke with anyone who agreed with the bailouts. Didn't matter if they were Republicans, Dems, considered themselves Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates, MCCain supporters, Obama supporters..

Never had one ordinary person say they were in favor of the bailouts.

The only people I heard in favor were politicians and those who were in line to get money.