Heritage U.S. Senate Relations Director Brian Darling writes in Human Events:
The Democratic leadership in Congress and President-elect Barack Obama have an ambitious stimulus list, including monies for pet transportation projects, an extension of unemployment insurance, food stamps and a costly auto industry bailout (more on that below). The Bush administration has resisted more wasteful spending without a deal on one or all of the pending free-trade agreements with Columbia, Panama and South Korea.
This is merely the first of many liberal stimulus packages. President-elect Obama has signaled that a stimulus package will be his administration’s top priority in January, no matter what Congress does this week. Resisting these plans should be a top priority for conservatives, who know that government spending reduces productivity and economic growth.
Unfortunately, our newly elected officials plan to follow the same failed spending strategies of the past, rather than enact reforms that can improve our nation’s economy. Dramatically cut the size of the federal government, and the economy will thrive.
Poor management across the board, in model selection, features, etc/ contributed substantially to the big three woes, but perhaps more so, the failure to negotiate realistic contracts with a very aggressive union placed an insuperable burden on costs and profits. Following and joining the handout parade are government entities, City and State, unable to meet budgets, and for many of the same reasons. Excessive personnel costs in both wages and incredibly generous benefits. There is little correlation between job requirements and pay in most government jobs, and certainly none in the big three auto companies. Most small business owners determine pay scale by matching the number of applicants for any given skill requirement in response to offers of employment in a pay range, and the retention level of satisfactory employees. Unions have coerced one company at a time under threat of closure during good sales times, and then forcing the other two to snap into line. With government workers the tactic is to point to City "A" as offering more and forcing City "B" and subsequent to snap into line. In California we have pensioners making more money than they ever did while employed, and we have pension commitments already in place that exceed our ability to fund. The public trough is finite and the devaluation of the dollar by liberal profligacy is the most insidious taxation imaginable of the middle class they are purporting to serve. Bail-outs, hand-outs and "stimulus" packages will kill us. If management, private or public, cannot reconcile their problems, let them fail. Taking from the productive and capable to support the inept and wasteful is doomed to fail.
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