Jobs bank programs -- 12,000 paid not to work Big 3 and suppliers pay billions to keep downsized UAW members on payroll in decades-long deal.
Note to pols: Bail that out at your political peril."
But is it at their political peril? If the Federal government bails out the big three, it will be using our tax dollars to pay the union democrat vote machine and assuring more block voting support for the Democrat candidates. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the auto companies ultimately offload their legacy retirement and health care costs directly on the Federal government through some sort of new program to "make America competitive again." It will be like a little social security program and the costs will simply vanish from the corporate balance sheets.
Well, they can choose to find out the hard way. My Pubbie Critter voted for bailout after voting against it. Now he's toast. Seems to me, IIRC, that all the Pubbie Critters who just lost their seats voted for the bailout.
Right on, you have it pegged.
As John McLaughlin used to say, "I believe you've lurched into the truth." Zero and the Rat congresscritters are bound and determined to prop up the Detroit car makers.
They'll act as engineering nannies and try to make a show of a switch to hybrids or something, but the truth is, Detroit cannot make a hybrid that is either significantly more fuel efficient or durable than the Japanese can. They'll be zombie companies, and the printing press will run to do CPR on them.
The next trick is to figure out how to supply pie to the rest of the base, since it looked so easy to pay off the UAW.