There goes our dough

Round and round they go, here come the bailouts, there goes our dough. It appears that a $15 billion dollar loan will go to the Big 3 Automakers. As Congress acts to spend money we don't have, I have to wonder how much that National Debt number at the top of the page will accelerate, and I worry for the country that we will leave behind for my daughter.

On the upside, the money will be a loan. On the downside, I've looked over what has been released of the plans so far and I'm concerned that they won't be able to pay it back. Quite simply, I'm not seeing a lot of change in how things are done in Detroit.

The UAW claims to be making concessions, but are they really? Read what has been reported of those "concessions" very carefully. They aren't giving anything up. They're only offering deferments. So, the money will still be owed, it just won't be owed right now. The legacy costs will still be there.

This has less to do with Detroit than Washington, but the cafe standards that helped drive the automakers into this mess will still be there and from what I can gather, Washington will be adding onto them.

Then, there's the appointment of the new Car-Czar to oversee the recovery of Detroit. This certainly seems like a good idea, given the performance of the Big 3, they could use some oversight. Unfortunately, if one is appointed, Washington won't appoint someone who can do the job well, such as Mitt Romney, instead it will go to some political hack who will try to make things work within the parameters of the Washington elite. These would be the same folks that brought us things like the the new Capitol Visitors Center which only ran a scant $550 million over budget. For those of you keeping score that's a scant 7.74 times the original budget of $71 million.

Then, of course, there's the oversight from the likes of Chris Dodd who is asking for GM's CEO to step down. I would be willing to see him step down for his incompetence if Dodd would step down for his role in forcing the whole subprime mortgage mess (if he could take the other folks involved like Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, etc. with him, that would be great too.)

Don't get me wrong, I would like to see Detroit be successful. I live in Toledo, home of one of Chrysler's crown jewel plants. If the Big 3 rebound, it will certainly help me, but I fear that Washington will run this with the same rousing success that they've run everything else and at best, the ensuing crash and economic destruction will be put off until my daughter and/or grandkids will get stuck with the bill.