Should Taxpayers Back Cars Only the Rich Can Afford?

theodp writes "The NY Times questions the $400M in low-interest federal loans requested by Tesla Motors as part of the $25B loan package for the auto industry passed by Congress last year. 'The program is intended to encourage automakers to improve fuel efficiency, but should it be used for a purpose like this, as the 2008 Bailout of Very, Very High-Net-Worth Individuals Who Invested in Tesla Motors Act?' Tesla says it is assembling about 15 cars a week and has delivered about 80 of its $109,000 base-price Roadsters to date, many of which have gone to the Valley's billionaires and centimillionaires who are Tesla investors as well as early customers. We discussed the company's financial difficulties last month."

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Neoconservative = State Welfare Supporter?

[reporter]

The most interesting aspect of the neoconservative movement is its fraudulent claim to support the free market. When George Bush and his colleagues campaigned in the 2000 election, they repeatedly demanded that the USA abide by the principles of the free market -- no government intervention, no way, no how.

The first sign that the words of neoconservatives differ markedly from their actions was the incident involving Creekstone Farms. In 2004, its management intended to perform mad-cow testing on 100% of the beef that it sold to consumers. Yet, the Bush administration blocked this comprehensive testing, interfering in the private business transaction between a private business and its customers. If a company wants to over-test its product, why does the government have a right to stop such testing?

The second sign that the words of neoconservatives differ markedly from their actions was the incident involving the troubled-asset-relief program (TARP) demanded by the Bush administration and authorized by Congress (at Bush's insistence). TARP is a program for using government money to buy toxic assets (and now to take an equity stake in banks) -- to rescue the people who deliberately and knowingly bought more house than they could afford and to rescue the fast-talking frauds who loaned the money to the house buyers.

The third sign that the words of neoconservatives differ markedly from their actions is the incident involving the allocation of $25 billion in government loans to the car companies. If they cannot build the cars that people want to buy, then they should be allowed to fail. That is how a free market works. The companies go into bankruptcy and possibly shutdown permanently. Why should the free-market advocating neoconservatives try to save these companies?

Why would neoconservatives act in this way? In case #1, the cattle industry regularly makes political donations to neoconservatives. In case #2, the financial industry regularly makes political donations to the neoconservatives. In case #3, the auto industry regularly makes political donations to the neoconservatives.

Case #3 is particularly egregious. Via collective bargaining, auto workers enjoy generous company-funded medical insurance. In order to maintain such private medical benefits, the same auto workers have opposed implementing federally guaranteed medical care (like that in Europe and Japan).

Here's the punch line. Let's condemn the neoconservatives for being liars. Let's condemn the auto workers for being hypocrites. Let's oppose any bailout for the auto companies, forcing them into bankruptcy and forcing millions of auto workers to lose their private medical insurance. The out-of-work auto workers can then "enjoy" the same lack of medical insurance that millions of unemployed workers have enjoyed in the absence of federally guaranteed medical care.