Key Vote “No” on Detroit 3 Bailout
On behalf of hundreds of thousands of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to VOTE “NO” on the Detroit 3 Bailout. The legislation will further nationalize private industry and undermine our free enterprise system. In a market economy, companies should be allowed both to profit when they provide what the consumers want, and fail when they do not. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac showed us exactly what happens when profits are privatized, but losses are socialized. This proposal leads GM, Ford, and Chrysler down that same path.
Central to the legislation is the creation of a “Car Czar”, an “Auto-crat” who, according to the White House, would “facilitate the restructuring necessary to achieve the long-term viability” and to whom, “each eligible manufacturer must submit a viability restructuring plan.” Restructuring is necessary—the Car Czar and this plan are not. Restricting is what market forces are trying to force right now, without a benevolent Autocrat getting involved. GM, Ford, and Chrysler are being pushed into bankruptcy to restructure because the market has determined their business models are not viable.
Why spend $15 billion and put in place a new bureaucracy to push companies to be competitive when the market does it every day at no cost to the taxpayer?
Rather than additional market interventions and more mandates on how these companies operate, Congress should let the Detroit 3 go down the necessary path of bankruptcy. This legal process would allow these corporations to reorganize and come out from under the crippling mandates of unions and their dealerships and emerge as streamlined, efficient entities like those operating in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina, which produced one quarter of American-made cars last year.
Congress should not be choosing winners and losers, or robbing Alabama to pay Michigan.
We will count your vote on the Detroit 3 Bailout as a KEY VOTE when calculating the FreedomWorks Economic Scorecard for 2008. The FreedomWorks Economic Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the Jefferson Award, which recognizes members of Congress with voting records that support economic freedom.
