Democrats reverse Obama on auto dealerships
The House passed a Treasury appropriations bill last week that includes an amendment reversing President Obama on the closure of nearly 800 Chrysler car dealerships and more than 2,000 GM dealerships.
The amendment sponsor was Republican Steve LaTourette of Ohio. 215 Democrats and 4 Republicans voted for the overall package. Bipartisanship!
The most snort-worthy reaction from the White House:
The White House said Wednesday it strongly opposes the measure, arguing it would “set a dangerous precedent, potentially raising legal concerns, to intervene in a closed judicial bankruptcy proceeding on behalf of one particular group.”
Funny, Democrats had no problem advocating radical intervention in closed judicial bankrupty proceedings before.
And dealer favoritism by the White House, not Congress, is precisely what a majority of Democrats apparently think is the problem that needs fixing.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- White House Hiding Budget Update While Rushing Health Care | The Substratum
- Video: Towhhall Meeting Erupts Over Obama Birth Certificate « Goodtimepolitics
- He is not God: Obama trips through a doorway « Jim Blazsik
- Rush Limbaugh Explains, Again, His “I Want Obama’s Agenda to Fail” Comments, Sean Hannity Show « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- No Laughing Matter: Bureau of Public Debt Tries to Hire Cartoonist to Make Americans Forget Financial Crisis « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- Jon Stewart: That’s Great, Obama… Now Fix the Economy! (video) « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- VIDEO: Miami to Protest Against Taxes & Gov. Spending – 7/21/2009 (Miami Protesta Contra Impuestos – Julio 21, 2009) « FactReal
- Dealergate « The Climate Heretic
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Chrysler
Legal Insurrection
» Calling For Sparkman Apologies
Power Line
» More From the East Anglia ArchivesRiehl World View
» Update2: No Cancer?? Suicide! Staged As Homicide - Live Stream Of Sparkman News ConferenceAmerican Thinker
» The Wilding of Sarah PalinFounding Bloggers
» Did The New York Times Just Tell Glenn Reynolds To “STFU”?Radio Equalizer
» Media Matters Admits Rush Didn't Make Key Racist RemarksHot Air
» 3rd quarter GDP 2.8%, not 3.5%Mudville Gazette
» Leakiest administration ever?
I am happy for the GM and Chrysler dealerships but my mind is made up. I will NEVER purchase a GM or Chrysler product as long as I live.
OH my, bho is having problems with the d’s? This is the second good news story of the day.
L
“I’m in a terrible dilemma.” “Yeah, I don’t care much for these foreign cars either.”
- Dorothy Granger and Moe (PUNCH DRUNKS, 1934)
Let’s hope dem’s continue to desert him on issues like “stimulus”, health care, gutting the armed forces, etc.
Good start. Now deny him his health care boondoggle!
Could somthing being going in the RIGHT direction suddenly. Good news just keep on coming in, we need it.
“For you I have zee grand surprise!” “So have I, if you only knew it!”
- Bud Jamison and Curly (WHOOPS, I’M AN INDIAN!, 1936)
As long as President Obama and his goons and sychophants have the lead and inertia they win. Responding after the fact to what they have done is a poor second and is an uphill battle. We need to act and see action before they ram this toxic crap down our throats. People are waking up to the realities, but we must keep up and increase the pressure. Health care revolution is losing ground and might be a victory to build on.
Given the deal UAW got in both Chrysler and GM, I can’t believe they could say this with a straight face. That’s what I call self control.
Traveler, I can’t say I will never by a GM again (I love my Silverados), but I will never buy a GM or Chrysler as long as the Government owns a single share of stock.
Questions:
1. What price did these dealers pay?
2. If we have come to depend on government intervention, what are we willing to tolerate before intervening on our own behalf?
3. Once our government takes over health care, who do I pay to keep working as a doctor???
So by the time this gets passed, the dealers will be gone and Dems will claim deniability — just in time for the 2010 elections. Plus, this still has to go to the Senate and probably committee, where they can easily yank that provision, and Dems will cry crocodile tears and say, “We tried!”
“dangerous precedent”???
And the take over of the private sector by forcing banks to make stupid loans in the name of community development, picking business winners and losers, absorbing banks, private insurance and the car industry into the gov sector and forcing us to pay for it. Every elected official who supports or votes for this take over is a traitor to the American public.
What does this mean? My local Chrysler dealer already closed, took the signs down and everything. They already sent me info to “get lost and find another dealer further away for your warranty work”. Does this mean my local dealership is going to re-open? Or now they have the option? I wouldn’t be surpised if they don’t want to re-open. Too bad it took a couple of months for Congress to wake up over this Obama power grab.
1st- “Free” press
2nd – Banks
3rd – Auto makers
4th and current – Doctors.
Who will be next?
Traded the 300-C for a Ford F-150 Platinum two weeks ago. Got a great deal. I also decided to put Ford back in my portfolio last month – another good call. So long GM and Chrysler.
Proud owner of a 2002 F150 and I come from a Ford family.
The Platinum is a very nice version of an already outstanding pickup.
Congrats.
Obama is standing on deck watching the rats swim away from the ship.
Obama: “Is it my immagination, or are we starting to list?”
Things just don’t seem to be going well these days for the Obama/McCain post-partisan administration. At ground level (Congressional districts. You know, like you and me?), the globalist mandate just doesn’t pass the smell test. Yeah I hear the pretty music but what IS that smell?
Maybe somebody with more knowledge of the auto industry can enlighten me. Other than the apparent favoritism over which dealerships stayed open, and which ones were forced to close, it seems to me that with the significant amount of “factory incentives” that the carmakers had to offer all of their dealerships, that closing down more than one third of them would allow GM and Chrysler to stop hemmoraging cash at the rapid rate that they had been for twenty years.
Why has there been such a backlash to closing down these dealerships, if all they really accomplished was to speed the amount of losses from the carmakers?
I have heard the MSM line that they were “profitable dealerships”, but would they have been profitable without the factories throwing money at them?
Just askin’
I am not at all sanguine this is a good thing.
It smacks of rooting for the wolves v. the wild dogs, when you are going to be dinner in any event.
IF GM and Chrysler were suddenly to be put back in private hands, and the bankruptcy rules and law allowed to have effect, I’d do a little happy dance.
The Congress fighting with the White House about who gets to run two fascist automaker collectives is NOT to celebrate.
J S Ragman,
You answer your question yourself.
If, as you imply, incentives are bad for the carmakers, then they would have to close down ALL dealerships, not just the ones Obama wants to punish.
Right or wrong, the backlash is a normal reaction to backroom closed meetings that result in broad-based economic devastation which is what these dealership closures represent to the many small towns that were home to these dealers.
It’s the missing “democratic”, “open” and “deliberative” parts of our open deliberative democracy that making us natives restless. Our elections have been reduced to picking which lying weasel gets to get rich for lying to us.
Hmmmm….
seems like a sort of structural problem that Civics 101 can’t effectively address…
starvethebeast.net
Closing all of the dealerships would have been the result of letting capitalism run its natural course then, correct?
Wow, BloombergTV just announced they will be airing a report in a few minutes projecting bailout will cost $34 trillion!
I myself own two Fords. A 2008 F350 CC Dually KR and 2008 Edge Limited. A relative who is a member of the Pipefitters Local, and owns his own business said he won’t be buying any GMs or Chryslers for his work trucks. All Fords now.
Ford’s numbers have slowly been increasing in market share since the bailout too. Hopefully they capitalize on it and continue to produce good vehicles.
FYI, did you know Ford also opted out of FDR’s Blue Eagle program as well? Found that out from links here: http://tiny.cc/LCQza The Ford commercial video ROCKS too!
Isn’t this all too little too late? Haven’t those dealership already been forced to close?
So what exactly does this mean for dealerships that were forced to close in the past month or so? Just in a nutshell will do. Will they be able to get financing to cover new cars for the lot? Will the company be obligated to honor their previous contract agreements with dealers? I still refuse to buy GM until the money is repaid and the govt owns none of it, but that’s just me.
we now have unfunded mandates from our gubmint to the tune of 60+ trillion dollars. with our gdp hovering around 12 trillion to 14 trillion per year this is the same as a typical 50K household having credit card debt of 200k. since the u.s. budget has no long term investments (aka your house) i classify this as credit card debt as it pays for day to day living.
Getting rich on those bumper stickers Rags? Here’s one:
Should make millions!
Hey PBoilermaker
While I love Ford trucks I am somewhat oldfashioned. For reliability nothing, and I mean NOTHING was better than a 60’s thru 70’s F-100 with a 240 through 300 6 cyl. They got me through decades of Fairbanks winters and always got me to work, even at -50+ below zero. Best story. Went to the Salcha river to fish for salmon. Driving out to a gravel bar in the middle. Water was deeper than I thought, engine quit. Turned it around and got it back to the shore including up the bank by bumping the starter. LOL!
Perhaps. But, that should be a market decision, not a government one.
I’m willing to bet that Dear Leader will be a lame duck President by 2011, especially if the GOP takes back Congress.
Muahahahaha!
Bogtrotter:
I miss my 64 F270 (I swear that is what the door tag read) 4×4 long bed. It had a 390 out of a 65 T-bird, a BW T98 four speed, and a 4.56 axles. It was a beater, but a heck of a stump puller. I was 20 something when I bought it and regret ever selling it. It has good memories from my AF days.
Best laugh was me and a buddy who helped me work on it. (He had an old push button tranny Dodge) Some guy with a 78 Chevy half ton with a 350 and 3.10s thought he could outpull it. We guffawed our way out of the room over that.
Not hardly.
I am in no way attempting to make anything on this. Indeed, I am out money, time earning a living, and stand to loose the ability to practice law.
But I put my money, and other stuff, where my mouth is. Unlike some.
Almost certainly not. Some would have closed, some would have changed, and some would be remarkably unaffected (provided that their brand continued to actually build cars that anyone would buy).
In any event, the market would be doing what the market does so brilliantly well…transmitting information that individuals can use to make decisions about how they will allocate their own scarce resources.
Here’s a way GM can stop hemmoraging cash – do what Ford does…
Seriously, last figures I looked at GM and Ford both had mid 40 billion in sales, but Ford did it with 55,000 workers, GM with 287,000 roughly speaking. So there are 230,000 unnecessary workers at GM. Get rid of them, the bottom line improves.
That’s my point. I’m in business for myself, and I don’t recall ever losing $25 billion and staying in business.
Although, I suppose some of the dealerships could have switched brands.
Aloha
I agree, GM is terribly inefficient. Having the government own 60% of the company just guarantees the inefficiency will go on. After this whole dealership issue, I suspect we will start seeing congressional action to keep some of GM’s manufacturing plants open, sort of like those Senate boneheads wanting to keep the F-22 project alive.
That is exactly correct. All the government accomplished with the accelerated “bankruptcy” was shrinking the company. But the old management is still in place and other than labeling themselves “green”, they will continue to make dumb decisions. It is still the same company, only smaller.
Also, does it help to know that the dealerships that were shut down were profitable? GM and Chrysler were not in trouble because they had too many dealerships but because they couldn’t compete on the corporate level. They still can’t.
So? What happens to the dealers already closed and their employees already laid off? How many miles must GM and Chrysler owners drive to get warranty work? I am underwhelmed.
Back to my earth killing, ozone depleting Ford F-150 and continue to irrigate the fields so the cows can eat green grass and belch methane gas and neat stuff.
A day without hating a leftist is like a day without homophobic orange juice
Work for the day of retribution-BIG TIME.
Now we will see if he sends some wise guys to police up his wayward Democrats.
Murtha voted for it.I’m sure his concern wasn’t for the auto dealers.I didn’t read the bill,so I wonder where Murtha’s pork is hidden in it.
Union made, not for me.
The White House said Wednesday it strongly opposes the measure, arguing it would “set a dangerous precedent, potentially raising legal concerns, to intervene in a closed judicial bankruptcy proceeding on behalf of one particular group.”
And yet O & Co. were quite comfortable using the phrase “sweetening the deal” when they were bullying Chrysler into their idea of bankruptcy to the the tune of 71 cents-on-the-dollar loss by creditors that had contracts guaranteeing their position at the top of the bankruptcy feeding trough.
Reversed the closure of dealerships, many already closed???!!!
I wonder if the lawmakers put that amendment in to save their hides come reelection day (while at the same time they are counting on a large % of dealerships never reopening).
“We fought Obama tooth and nail to save our dealerships.” Yada Yada Yada…
My question is what was in the overall package that lead to 170 Republicans and 38 Democrats to vote “nay”?
I am quite skeptical when the “yeas” include the likes of McDermott, Waxmann, Frank, Murtha, and Rangel.
The Dems are worried that when people go to vote in 2010, they will have to pass a shuttered GM or Chrysler dealer. These are going to make great “vote GOP” monuments.
Agreed, there is more to the story. I’m thinking as mentioned above, most are out to save votes next year, save face if they have one left.
Stupid White House.
If they were smart, they’d have seized on the opportunity to count the employees of the soon-to-be-unclosed dealerships among the spurious “saved jobs” Obama and Biden keep touting.
The fact that it was a Republican measure that helped make it happen? Details…
This kind of thing will continually go on with the government ownership of these car companies. The fraudulent “President” and the politicians in Congress will constantly be changing and reversing.
I’m through with GM and Chrysler. I will never own another one of their cars until the Democrats mandate that these two companies are the only options allowed for sale in US.