Michigan Rep. Dingell blames 'some Southern senators' for auto bailout defeat

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: CNN

Michigan Rep. John Dingell blasted “some Southern Senators” Friday for the failure of the auto bailout plan.

“Last night, some Southern Senators kicked American workers in the gut,” Dingell said in a statement released by his office. “Let’s be clear about what happened in the Senate: Senators from states where the international automakers do considerable business unpatriotically blocked a bill that was supported by the White House, that passed the House with a bipartisan majority, and that had the support of 52 Senators.”

Dingell said that Republican critics of the proposal could have had “many reasons for blocking this bill and thwarting the will of a majority of Congress,” although he said they had not allowed their objections over pay and benefit provisions “to be resolved in the proper tradition.” But, he added, “It could also be that a block of southern Senators saw an opportunity for their states to benefit from the losses of those of us in all parts of the country.

"Perhaps they wanted to crush a long time political rival – the United Auto Workers – without any concern about the considerable damage done to the nation’s economy and the millions of American workers who would be without work. That they would take any or all of these positions is troubling, but that they would do so during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression literally shocks the conscience."

Dingell and Michigan representatives of both parties sent a letter Friday to President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke calling on them to use existing bailout funds to aid the struggling auto industry.

Read more: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/12/12/dingell...

[1monster]

1. K & R... the beginning of the end of Republican lockstep?

[Spouting Horn]

2. Why all the sudden do

Democrats support Corporate Welfare?

Taking from someone who makes $25/hour to subsidize someone making $35/hr is not just.

Is there any penalty for a failing business, or do successful ones have to absorb all the costs?

[mac56]

3. You're referring to this as corporate welfare?

Taking steps to protect hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, of working families?

What was your take on the bailout of bankers and stockbrokers? Lemme guess...

[revolve]

5. I make much less than $25/Hr and gladly support the bailout

If the big three fail, my state fails, and I will probably lose my job, so fuck yeah I support it.

[LiberalFighter]

6. Who the hell is making $35 an hour?

[notadmblnd]

7. You just don't get it do you?

If those 35 dollar an hour jobs go away, so will those 25 dollar an hour ones. Don't think for a minute those foreign auto makers won't disappear. If their cars aren't selling here either (it's currently a fact that the foreign makers are hurting too), they'll close up shop and go home. You're talking about 4 million working people. Contributing, consuming goods, paying taxes, etc. Instead they'll become burdens seeking government assistance. They stop buying all but necessities, stores start closing, laying off more people, fast food restaurants close. No one can afford to eat there. If allowed to happen, it will have a giant snowball effect downhill for all of us. Don't think it won't affect you, I guarantee, it will be more than just the domestic auto workers eating dirt.

You really do need to give some more thought to your position on the issue.

[Waiting For Everyman]

10. Maybe to prevent you from making zero soon - ever think of that?

[bobd0]

12. When all of a sudden do southern senators subsidize foreign auto manufacturers with U.S. tax dollars

but kill a bridge loan to save the U.S. auto industry?

[McCamy Taylor]

16. Southern states get more federal tax dollars than Northern states. They give money to foreign auto

companies. So, Southern states are using federal tax money to pay off foreign companies to stay in their states and then they use union busting tactics to keep wages artificially low to persuade those companies to stay in their states. Part of the reason they get more federal funds is because Southern states have deliberate policies that create and foster poverty even among the working class. The poor working class is just the ticket to attract factories to a state.

There is no way that any federal government should try to force other states to copy the old style Russia surf and landed gentry economic system of the South. Instead, I hope that the new Congress and administration takes steps to force the south to allow free unionization. I know that Latino workers are eager to join unions.(That is the real reason Frist and Co. are so scared of them). When they start joining, whites will doubtless join too. And I hope that the Obama administration steps in to equalize educational opportunity in the south---something which has been denied to many, again deliberately to create a serf class of workers. And I hope that they do something about health care, which the south has denied to workers.

I am from the south, have lived here all my life, and my attitude is screw the rich son's of bitches who think that they are entitled to make a profit off the sweat and misery of other human beings. If there is a God, they are going to burn in Hell forever---but it isn't soon enough.

[Le Taz Hot]

21. There are approximately 3 million

jobs at risk here. Unlike Wall Street, we're talking about middle-class and on down the line jobs.

Btw, it's "all of a sudden" not "all the sudden."

[TankLV]

4. And Dingell was spot-on!

but it is "impolite" to mention the OBVIOUS here, now isn't it!

[Career Prole]

8. You're right. Hell, I live in the South...

...but it's hard to ignore the "elephant" in the room, as it were.

[Number23]

9. Good for him

Repubs are so desperate to try to punish Obama with the tiny drop of power that they have left before he even takes office that they will wreck the entire economy and cost many millions their jobs in the process.

Glad someone called them on it. But as has been said before on this site, Obama has one hell of a job waiting for him in January.

[bobd0]

11. In my political world these traitorous bastards would pay dearly next session. Dearly. K&R nt

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mudoria]

14. Idiots are born every day. And some post on the internet...

[bobd0]

15. And the rest of them live down south. nt

[BeatleBoot]

17. And they congregate in Alabama

for some reason.

http://www.boycottalabamanow.com /

[AlabamaBrightBlueDot]

18. Many of us in the south........

Support this bailout. Generalizations like yours are pretty heartless.

I have seen several negative posts about the south in the past few days... what gives? This is ONE country. There are many jackass lawmakers in the north as well, but that doesn't mean all northern people deserve a 'fuck you'.

[bobd0]

19. I can't believe you even have to ask what gives.

Southern senators just gave the American auto industry, and along with it millions of American workers, a big "FUCK YOU" while they subsidize foreign auto manufacturers' with American tax dollars and you have to ask what gives?

Don't ask what gives here. Ask McConnell, Corker, Shelby, and Demint what gives "down south".

While the south collects welfare payments through the federal tax redistribution system (must be the "socialism" we heard about from McCain/Palin) they have the nerve to deny aid to the American auto industry even as they use those American tax dollars to subsidize foreign auto makers in their states.

Traitors.

What goes around comes around. The auto industry is in for a rough ride. Sales are down worldwide. When those foreign auto makers start closing their U.S. taxpayer subsidized American plants in favor of their own workers southern auto workers will find themselves in the same boat as U.S. auto workers and I hope they get the same treatment they gave America -- a great big "FUCK YOU" right back at you.

[AlabamaBrightBlueDot]

20. I don't disagree with you on the lawmakers.... or the subsidies to foreign auto industry....

But a fuck off to the south as a whole struck me as a bit nasty.... you know... this sentence:

"FUCK THE SOUTH. PERIOD. SHOULD HAVE LET THE IDIOTS SECEDE. WE'D BE A FAR BETTER NATION WITHOUT THEM."

edit for clarification....

[bobd0]

22. But I'm only echoing YOUR senators' sentiments. Those southern senators that said

fuck the north. Period.

They're still fighting The Civil War. I know. I've been to the south.

The same south that actually voted FOR McCain/Palin and will do anything to sabotage a Democratic administration for another chance to fuck things up even worse next time.

[AlabamaBrightBlueDot]

23. I voted against the republican ticket.....

As did many other folks. As I recall, the south is not the only area where McCain/Palin were popular.

I am not going to get into a battle of words with you; my only point is that there are conscientious democrats in the south as well - we are growing in number and I (for one) do not like being told I should have seceded. This is MY country; I was not alive at the time of the civil war. I do not fly the stars and bars. I do not refer to the civil war as the war of northern aggression.

Simple curiosity here.... do you also think that Alaska should secede? Or any other part of this country? I don't. I think it is way past time for the healing of the rifts in this country. It is unfortunate (in my opinion) that you do not reflect the same feelings.

[pampango]

24. Unfortunately, some probably want to move the wall between the US and Mexico to

the Mason-Dixon line. Rather than working to solve problems that exist in Alabama (or China or Mexico or anywhere since every place has its problems) the easiest solution is to build a wall to keep those "problems" (people or products) out.

If these same people proposed that urban ghettos "secede", they would be derided as racists and class bigots. But proposing the same thing aimed at the South is somehow considered "progressive".

[AlabamaBrightBlueDot]

25. (whew) Thank you.

I am very appreciative that someone understands what I was saying....

[bobd0]

26. I'm not the one building the wall

Certain southern senators are building walls. Not me. When southerners act like they have their own nation within a nation, when they do their best to fuck American workers to further their own interests, it is they who are building walls.

You're confusing cause and effect.

[pampango]

28. I don't see any Southerners building walls. I see them acting in a manner

that you and others find unacceptable resulting in a proposal to boycott them (build a wall).

When we boycotted South Africa's economy in the apartheid days, we were effectively building a wall around their economy in response to the behavior of their government, which we found unacceptable. You may wish to equate the South's behavior with that of apartheid South Africa, but don't deny that you are the one building the wall.

[bobd0]

29. They're building walls around organized labor to benefit their business deals with

foreign auto manufacturers.

Southern Republican senators, aside from being members of the political party that is responsible for the current economic crisis, are using that crisis to attain their long sought goal of destroying organized labor, and they don't given a damn if they destroy the entire nation along with it.

Rarely is an issue this clear cut but those southern Republican senators have made this one as clear cut as possible. Their states, their constituents, their money above all. Fuck the rest of American as long as the foreign auto manufacturers continue to fill their state coffers.

But not for long. And I sincerely hope the south gets a good dose of their own medicine when the time comes. And the time is coming sooner than they realize.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/business/16global.htm...

For years, the overseas operations of Ford and General Motors helped buoy Detroit when times were difficult in the United States.

But there are growing concerns that the automakers' problems in the United States will weigh down their more successful units in Europe, Asia and Latin America — even with a short-term lifeline that the Bush administration has signaled it will provide to G.M. and Chrysler, which sells almost exclusively in the United States.

Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, warned that the indirect effect of a potential G.M. collapse for American parts makers would be severe. He added that German manufacturers in the United States, like Mercedes and Bayerische Motoren Werke, the maker of BMW cars, would have to rethink not just their American supply chains but their global ones as well.

"There would be no winners, only losers," Mr. Dudenhöffer said. "This would create a huge mess around the world."

I, for one, will be laughing my ass off as the foreign manufacturers pull out of southern states one by one. When they do, I guaranty those same southern Republican senators will be asking for the same aid they are denying to others.

[pampango]

30. If that's how you want to define "building walls", then I am sure that you will never

be the one that does it. I guess one could also argue that South Africa "built the walls" even though they did not do the boycotting, we did.

My guess is that most of the Southern senators also voted against the financial industry bailout. How many of them are consistently against all bailouts and how many of them were against the financial bailout for one reason and against the auto industry loans for another reason, I don't know. (I'm sure you do know and can guarantee something in this regard.)

"I sincerely hope the south gets a good dose of their own medicine when the time comes. And the time is coming sooner than they realize." Change "south" to "north" and I suspect you would have a sentiment felt by many Southerners for decades given the relative prosperity of the North. The South was mostly agricultural and rural, while the north was more urban, industrial and wealthy. The "beggar thy neighbor (region)" is nothing new. I wonder if the West resents the East, the SouthWest the NorthEast, as much.

Maybe we can't "just all get along".

[bobd0]

32. Your senators began this regional divisiveness. Don't blame me for the reaction. You should have

expected it.

[bobd0]

27. Just one small point

I never said I wanted anyone to secede. I said, "SHOULD HAVE LET THE IDIOTS SECEDE. WE'D BE A FAR BETTER NATION WITHOUT THEM."

Their decision to secede would have been a plus for America, IMO. And southerners are still proving that point.

[AlabamaBrightBlueDot]

31. Seems the no votes were all around this country......

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/12/20-flipped-on-auto /

Yes to TARP, No to auto
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)
Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT)
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC)
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)
Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Sen. Kay Hutchison (R-TX)
Sen. John Isakson (R-GA)
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL)
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Sen. John Thune (R-SD)

Yes to TARP, Absent for auto
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Sen.Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Sen. John Sununu (R-NH)


Biden was tending to transition duties, while Kerry was in Poznan, Poland, participating in U.N. climate change talks. Alexander was home recovering from surgery. Why did these other Senators feel auto workers weren’t as deserving as Wall Street? We’d like to know. If you see statements from them, please let us know by email or in the comments section.

UpdateSen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher in his heyday, was scheduled to appear Sunday at a sports card show in Taylor, Michigan to sign autographs. “But Bunning was kicked off the schedule after he helped derail an auto-industry loan package in the Senate Thursday night.” (HT: TP commenter cali)

[bobd0]

33. The opposition to the auto bailout was concevied and spearheaded by southern Republicans. nt