Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden had a stirring speech at last Thursday’s Democratic Party convention, touting his running mate’s strong nerves in dealing with our economy. And it was full of…errors. Fox News‘ Elizabeth MacDonald has a scorecard; here’s just one item, though.
On the Auto Bailout: “Conviction. Resolve. Barack Obama. That’s what saved the automobile industry.”
Rebuttal: And lots of taxpayer money, $80 billion to start. GM and its financing arm still owes US taxpayers $25.1 billion, and taxpayers still own just under a third of GM, or 500 million shares, which remain underwater. The stock must trade at around $53 a share for taxpayers to breakeven; they currently trade at around $21. This past August, the Treasury Dept. revised higher the cost of the auto bailout by $3.4 billion, up from the prior estimate of $21.7 billion, an old estimate that had been revised higher over the past year. GM continues to struggle, as the White House has pressured it to manufacture fuel efficient Chevy Volts, a line of cars GM has pulled the plug on.
Not mentioned in the Vice President’s speech, either, was the Administration’s pressure to pull the plug on car dealerships. The Obama Administration pressured GM and Chrysler to halt relations with about 2,200 dealers—each one with roughly 50 employees. That equals to about 110,000 jobs lost.
Notice that careful elision. That’s 110,000 jobs, wholly unrelated to GM’s bad leadership, that steely-eyed Obama tossed into the can. Because Big Government knows better than private enterprise—even one like GM—how that private enterprise should run its business.
RTWT.