Majority now support auto bailout

[Steverino]

Despite using the bailout as the prime reason to bash the Volt, "The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Feb. 8-12 finds that 56% say the loans the government made to GM and Chrysler were mostly good for the economy, while 38% say the loans to the automakers were mostly bad for the economy. In 2009, 57% viewed the loans negatively while 37% regarded them as mostly good for the economy."

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2202/gov...-stimulus-tarp

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[frankydude]

I will join the majority: having saved the US auto industry was a very good thing.

[mustardman]

The problem with most polls is you cannot run gov't that way. Most of the time current polls don't reflect the long term best interests of the country. Iraq invasion was hugely popular in the polls at the time. Nuff said.

But these numbers are different because they are asking about something that happened over 2 years ago. So they are basically just people acknowledging that in the long term it was a good thing.

[Steverino]

The problem with most polls is you cannot run gov't that way.

Well, you can, but it's called pandering rather than leadership.

The bailout was very unpopular at the time. I give Bush and Obama credit for showing leadership by choosing the unpopular option based on what was best for the country, rather the easy and politically safe choice.

[mustardman]

Well, you can, but it's called pandering rather than leadership.

The bailout was very unpopular at the time. I give Bush and Obama credit for showing leadership by choosing the unpopular option based on what was best for the country, rather the easy and politically safe choice.

Of course you can. Just look at G Dubya's presidency and you will find plenty of examples.

You give G Dubya credit do ya. He was on his way out with no political consequences whatsoever and you give him credit for that tough decision? He specifically said that he was only giving GM enough to make it to March so that the next administration would have to deal with it.

[Steverino]

You give G Dubya credit do ya. He was on his way out with no political consequences whatsoever and you give him credit for that tough decision? He specifically said that he was only giving GM enough to make it to March so that the next administration would have to deal with it.

Whatever the situation, he could have said no. He didn't, so yes he deserves credit for that. You are correct that he had little to fear in terms of fallout compared to Obama, but he did the right thing nonetheless.

[crom99]

It's strange to discuss this issue with different people because some consider the loans to be "the bailout" and some don't. Those that don't consider the infusion of cash via stock purchases, as is the case with GM, was the actual bailout. Either way, it's an indefensible position considering that the government has provided loans to companies throughout its entire history. Not only that, but the government has subsidized industries throughout its entire history as well. In the 1780s, farming was heavily subsidized and still is today. Railroad development, too, was heavily subsidized. So was the oil industry, and still is. And so was the airline industry. Investment in new tech and innovation by the US government lead to satellite technology, the transistor, and the Internet.

So while there's a good ideological case for pure free market policies, these policies have never existed in the history of this country. We have always been a mixed market economy. In this global economy, we almost have to be to remain competitive with countries like China.

[MrEnergyCzar]

If in 2 years from now the final 26% of gov't ownership is paid back, people will still think it's horrible. The majority won't though. The bank bailouts were much larger, maybe 10 times larger so it's kind of a silly argument... if it was your job, you'd be happy.

MrEnergyCzar

[Uncle Rollo]

That's the kind of response you would expect in a democracy. But our government isn't a democracy. That's where most of the problem lies. Too many people think we live in a democracy, mob rules. I can't find in our constitution where the government should be bailing out any company or industry. Or paying for welfare, for people or companies. And until the people that run our government figure that out, our debt issues will never be solved.

Rollo

[crom99]

That's the kind of response you would expect in a democracy. But our government isn't a democracy. That's where most of the problem lies. Too many people think we live in a democracy, mob rules. I can't find in our constitution where the government should be bailing out any company or industry. Or paying for welfare, for people or companies. And until the people that run our government figure that out, our debt issues will never be solved.

To understand, you would have to go back through 100 years of legal precedent. And before that, back to the arguments between signatories of the Constitution: Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. They disagreed on what the "general welfare" clause meant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General...#United_States

Madison argued for a narrow interpretation, and Hamilton argued for a broader interpretation. The Supreme Court agreed with Madison up until the 1930s, then it took a more broad interpretation. Now, over 70 years later, even the majority conservative justices on the court would not challenge the constitutionality or legal precedent of welfare or the bailouts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/us...challenge.html

So the constitutionality of welfare isn't a useful argument since the precedent for its legitimacy has already been set. And since the GM bailouts were done with TARP money, which was primarily used for the banks, but also for many, many other "general" purposes in a time of national emergency, it's not useful to argue the constitutionality of such a bailout because such precedent exists.