Republicans Complain About GM and Chrysler Bail Out Losses

Republicans are complaining about the mounting losses associated with the GM and Chrysler bail out. Those mounting losses are due to the fact that the Treasury Department cannot sell the GM stocks (it owns) in the global equity market without taking on losses.

The bailout yielded a profit due to repayment of the bailout followed by the sale of stock owned by the government. The conservatives are all for capitalism. Well, TARP is based on the principals of capitalism and was implemented by a Republican Administration. Some Republicans wanted to let major financial institutions fail. In other words, the Republicans were willing to watch our economy collapse like a house of cards. I call them the do-nothing Republicans. They wanted to do nothing except watch our financial markets collapse.

Now these Republicans are criticizing Obama for trying to salvage our auto industry. In February 2011, GM reported its biggest annual profit since 1999. GM also paid back its bail out in full! GM had to downsize. Downsizing is much better than going out of business. Some do-nothing Republicans wanted to let the American Auto Industry crumble. Now the Treasury Department is waiting for the right time to sell the GM stock it acquired as part of the bail out. The Treasury Department is recording losses due to the downward slide of the US stock market. The drop in stock prices is due to the global equity market. One could almost predict what stock prices will do on Monday by watching the foreign equity markets on Sunday night. Blaming Obama for what happens in the global equity market is just plain lame.

The Republicans claim big government should not have bailed out the American auto industry and at the same time defend giving tax subsidies and tax incentives to an oil corporation that will post an income of over one trillion dollars in 2011. I submit that the tax subsidies and incentives are freebies. These freebies are funded with US taxpayers' money. The tax incentives encouraging corporations to move to other nations add to the national debt and cause a loss in US jobs. These tax incentives are also funded with the taxpayers' money. Our generation and future generations will share the burden of these freebies by paying higher taxes.

Republicans are even unwilling to pay a war tax so the wars don't increase our national debt. Some even advocate increasing our national debt via a war with Iran funded by China. That will only increase the tax burden. It is bound to lead to higher taxes.

I'll say the same thing to the Republicans as Cain said to the unemployed: "If taxes go up, it is your own damn fault!!"

Some of the opinions in this article were expressed in blogs on www.thoughts.com and in comments on Facebook.