Perspectives on an Auto Industry Bailout
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
I’m impressed by the comments on H.R. 7297, the Emergency Automobile Industry American Jobs Protection Act of 2008, and encourage you to take a look.
I noted the bill in this week’s WashingtonWatch.com Digest (subscribe here) and spurred knowledgeable and opinionated people to share their thinking on the idea of a “Big Three” bailout.
There’s lots of blame to go around. Some blame management for collecting huge salaries and bonuses. Some blame labor for demanding salaries and benefits beyond what the market will bear. Apparently, there’s a Ford plant closing in Mexico, yet the workers there will get higher-than-normal severance benefits. An interesting comment points to the relationships between the auto companies and the dealerships, which may tie automakers into producing unprofitable lines.
Maybe among advocates of a government bailout for private industry, everybody’s all wet. Thanks to WashingtonWatch.com’s visitors for making their knowledge and thinking available to others.
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It’s always interesting to watch the comment boards, and a visitor who simply identifies him or herself as “.” is making the most of them. 


One of the keys to WashingtonWatch.com is good data about federal legislation. A reason why WashingtonWatch.com is not a much better resource is because it’s very hard to get good data out of the legislative branch.
Dozens of press releases come out every day on some public policy issue or another. I picked one pretty much at random to write about a couple of months ago. It was an American Trucking Associations release touting the support of a professional truck driver for a piece of legislation. I thought that was a little gimmicky, but it’s far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen in public policy advocacy.