Associated Press
Romney still wishes policymakers had let Detroit go bankrupt.
Looking back over the last three years, there's arguably no better example of a policy Republicans got wrong than the rescue of the American auto industry.
When President Obama launched his ambitious policy in 2009, he was taking a major gamble -- not only with the backbone of American manufacturing, but with his presidency and its ability to use the power of government to repair a private industry facing collapse. As First Read noted at the time, "As the GM bailout goes, so goes the Obama presidency."
We now know the gamble paid off. Chrysler has posted its first profit in 15 years; GM is building new American facilities; and plants are operating at a capacity unseen in a long while. General Motors went from the brink of total failure to reclaiming its spot as the world's top automaker, and as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, "The auto industry hasn't just turned the corner. It's starting to accelerate."
Had it not been for the Obama administration's policy, these heartening headlines would have been impossible. And yet, Mitt Romney still isn't happy.
In a new Detroit News op-ed, the former Massachusetts governor says he's glad the industry still exists, but proceeds to complain anyway about the way in which Obama rescued GM and Chrysler from an imminent collapse.
Three years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis, a newly elected President Barack Obama stepped in with a bailout for the auto industry. The indisputable good news is that Chrysler and General Motors are still in business. The equally indisputable bad news is that all the defects in President Obama's management of the American economy are evident in what he did.
Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses, Obama rewarded them.... By the spring of 2009, instead of the free market doing what it does best, we got a major taste of crony capitalism, Obama-style.
It takes a fair amount of chutzpah to face a crisis, get it wrong, then whine about the way in which the other guy got it right.
This is a subject Romney would be better off ignoring. After all, in 2009, he famously urged policymakers to "let Detroit go bankrupt." Romney was so certain Obama's policy would fail, he said Americans could "kiss the American automotive industry goodbye" if Obama's policy moved forward in 2009. Indeed, at the time, Romney called the administration's plan "tragic" and "a very sad circumstance for this country." He wrote an April 2009 piece in which he said Obama's plan "would make GM the living dead."
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know all of Romney's warnings were wrong. For him to double down today on the virtues of letting Detroit go bankrupt is just bizarre.
I'm reminded of this clip, which Democrats gleefully put together last summer.
Of particular interest is the last quote in the clip, in which a Chrysler executive responded to a Romney quote by saying, "Whoever told you that is smoking illegal material. That market had become absolutely dysfunctional in 2008 and 2009. There were attempts made by a variety of people to find strategic alliances with other car makers on a global scale and the government stepped in, as the actor of last resort. It had to do it because the consequences would have been just too large to deal with."
In other words, Romney wasn't just wrong; he was drug-addled wrong.
To be sure, the former governor wasn't the only Obama critic whose predictions now look foolish, but Romney is the one who still likes to pretend he was right.
Even the complaints themselves are strange. As Marcy Wheeler explained, Romney's "basically complaining that the bailout preserved the healthcare a bunch of 55+ year old blue collar workers were promised. He's pissed they got to keep their healthcare. He's also complaining that banks took a haircut."
I haven't talked to the White House about this, but I suspect if 2012 comes down to a debate over who was right about the auto-industry rescue, Obama likes his chances.
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In what world is this supposed to help Mittens win the Michigan primary or carry the state of Michigan in this fall's election?
SOV,
Shhh! Just give him a little more rope...
My guess is that even in Michigan, Obama Derangement Syndrome is so rampant that the GOP base would rather have the state's biggest industry go under than give Obama some kind of win.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120214/OPINION01/202140336/1008/opinion01/Romney-op-ed-Taxpayers-should-get-GM-shares-proceeds
READ THE WHOLE THING.
ROMNEY RESTRUCTURING WOULD HAVE MADE GM STRONGER.
Yes; President Romney would have traded GM for some Magic Beans.
-And then sent the union workers up the beanstalk to look for a job!
Or magic underwear lol
He could be the president on the Gingrich's moon colony!
Mitt Romney likes to forget that the free market had it's invisible hand out looking for it's own government handout at this time and there was nobody standing around with $85 billion to lend as part of a structured bankruptcy as the credit markets were frozen.
Romney got it wrong. He was perfectly happy letting the US auto industry crash so he could blame Obama. It was all aprt of the Republican long term strategy for 2010 and 2012 - the worse they could make things the better their electoral chances. It's going to be hard for Romney to win Michigan in the Primary because Democrats and Independents can cross over and vote against him and it's going to be hard for him to win a general election here when he dare not step foot in a big 3 assembly plant or in any automotive supplier plant.
I may be incorrect but Michigan does not allow democrats to vote in Republican presidential primaries anymore(or vice versa). They changed it after the 2008 primaries.
If Romney were a professor, no one would take his classes. Beneath the conclusions, there simply is no substance. Ever. It may be fun to psycho-analyze his speeches, or draw logical inferences, but there simply is no there there.
Banks took a haircut? Hardly even a light trim
Mitt's disappointed he doesn't get to fire a few people.
Mittens is just upset that Obama denied vulture capitalists like himself a chance to shove their heads shoulder deep into the cooling corpse of the auto-industry. That's how prosperity is made by God!
Don Quixokie, I couldn't agree more. Mitt and his friends missed out on an opportunity to create a new blind trust in the Cayman's from the Auto Industry.
Of course, it was a private equity firm that bought Chrysler a few years before the crisis and loaded it up with debt, making the inevitable crash even more spectacular.
What kind of political advice is Mr Romney receiving? To rail out loud against a program that saved not just the auto industry and Michigan but the entire country from a 1930-style Depression in the hometown newspaper of the auto industry is lunacy. Does he think he'll peel away some Santorum supporters by staying to the right of Attilla the Hun on an issue that affects every voter in the entire state of Michigan?
We're truly well into the loony season.
There is an exceedingly hard and cruel heart in Romney. His legendary stiffness is just the hardness at the core of his being rising to the surface.
One of the most unworthy candidates I've ever seen.
I don't think he's hard or cruel. Just myopic and wrong.
I think Mitt Romney would strangle a baby in its crib if someone offered him enough money to do so. My biggest fear about a President Romney is that on his first day in office, the Chinese will call him up and offer him $10 billion and safe passage to Macao in exchange for the nuclear football, and he'll take them up on it because he honestly believes that making money is the sole motive for action.
Stupid is a good word.
Mittens getting elected would be no different than Bush winning a third term in economic or foreign policy. But to keep the attention of the that far right fringe, he is going even further to the right in social policy than Bush ever did.
And the scary bad sad thing is that he is still the least offensive of all the field.
What a maroon!
A marooned moron?
What nobody is referencing is the cost of unemployment insurance for the auto workers. If you assume that 250,000 people would have lost work (a conservative number) and that we would have paid them $150 per week each for 26 weeks, I come up with $975M....and we all know that the number of unemployed woud have been higher and the length would have been longer, not to mention the lost revenue from payroll taxes, sales taxes, etc.
The money we spent on the auto bailouts is a no-brainer from a purely economic perspective.
"The money we spent on the auto bailouts is a no-brainer from a purely economic perspective." And why didn't I'm-the-only-one-here-who-knows-business Romney understand that at at the time?
And most of it has been paid back and what hasn't, is on its way.
$150 a week? On what planet? More like $300-400. So closer to $2B.
I encourage everyone who is interested in this topic to read the book that tells the story - its called "Overhaul" by Stephen Rattner http://tinyurl.com/82xh76k
HIGHLY recommended reading.
If Unions are such an onerous burden which can't possibly play a role in a corporate success story, then how does the Dumb, er, Mitt explain the facts (#1 in world, best in 15 years, etc)? I think the only case that Dumb-Mitt has really made here is that Obama, who "has no business management experience", chose a course which has produced a result that *any* CEO with a fancy pants Ivy League Business degree would point to as justification for receiving an astronomical bonus and salary.
HA!
Being from a suburb of Detroit...with Headquarters of Ford...GM...Chrysler...Nissan NA...Toyota...not to mention the amount of suppliers spread accross the Metro area. If Romney had had his way...this area would have become a "Ghost Town". I can't believe how "ignorant" and "stubborn" the GOP are in acknowledging the success of Obama's intervention with the Auto Industry. That stats are there...'READ THEM". Last night when they showed the lastest poll of Michigan counties and who they support...Romney is ahead in "One"...Oakland Co...where the 1 percent live...Who knew!!
This is the bread and butter of Mitt Romney's terrifically flawed campaign. He offers nothing but overheated rhetoric attacking President Obama and every single thing he has accomplished, yet fails to offer a viable alternative as to what a prospective President Romney would do. He has never released an economic plan, or a plan to cut the deficit, or a plan to protect the safety net. His only solution on Medicare is to kill it completely, so his criticism of Obama for "cutting" it is bizarre. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
It's a game the GOP is playing and poorly at that! Mitt is and will always be the elite of the money hungers. He does not live in the real world but his iovry tower surrounded by people he pays to be there and no other reason. Obama has had plans, does have plans, and isn't afraid to use them. Thank God he used one in the auto industry and is on his way to making America great once again in the eyes of it's citizens and the world. Just think how much more good his implementation of his other plans would keep moving America in the right direction. Willard just keeps helping Rick, and Rick should be on his knees thanking God for the Willard Mitt Blessing.
It's pernicious creeping socialism when money fails to make it into off-shore tax havens and must be stopped
"Crony capitalism?" You mean the kind of capitalism where your dad got rich in the auto industry and politics, so you could be rich, too?
Romney is still mad because the auto workers themselves still get their pension and healthcare from the deal. God knows they don't deserve those. Don't anybody understand by now that in an event like that, we have to take care of the most important group of people, the one who need it most....the investors? And then American Super Hero like Bain Capital will come to the rescue...that's how it is supposed to work (at least in the United States of Romneyca)
The thing that gets me is the fact that he keeps saying how the bailout is just giving the industry away to the auto worker and nobody bother to make him laid out the fact that the share of the company was given IN EXCHANGE for 1/2 of the workers healthcare benefits that the company owe them. IT WAS NOT A GIVE AWAY as he wants people to believe. He never bother to mention the fact that those workers has given up the right for a salary increase and got some reduce benefits for the deal. But I guess it is only called "sacrifice" if you make a certain amount of income, otherwise it'll be called "right to work".
For a second I'd forgetten who was posting and you spooked me there.
I don't really have anything to reply regarding Mitt Romney that hasn't already been said. Monumentally wrong. But I would recommend some further reading if anybody's interested in the GM bail-out as a topic - "Car Guys vs. Bean Counters" by Bob Lutz.
Now, fair warning, he's not a liberal. Not even a little. So his take on environmentalism would make most people here (like me) cringe - but he was actually there in GM in a position to know what was going on during the financial crisis and bail-out. It's a perspective that we don't get to hear about much and a great insight into how the moving parts come together.
Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses, Obama rewarded them...
Union bosses? I have two words for Mitt Romney: Southwest Airlines! (Not the two words you expected?)
This comment is only tangentially related to Steve's post, but for decades, the most heavily unionized airline in its industry has also been the most profitable--while maintaining excellent labor relations throughout that period. The idea that unions are hurting manufacturing or any other industry or profession is a lie, and Southwest Airlines disproves the lie.
On the other side of the coin, American Airlines is in bankruptcy despite its anti-union policies. Union hating rhetoric is intended, in part, to deflect responsibility from piss-poor CEOs and their boards to somebody else...anybody else.
Quick history lesson. One I give frequently...yeah go ahead roll your eyes, all of you who have heard this before.
America's economy never roared louder than during World War Two. Was that because - as every Republican believes, especially Bush and Cheney - that wars are good for the economy? Absolutely not. America was still shaking off the Great Depression when WW 2 broke out. In response, the govt invested heavily in manufacturing to create war materiel. They engaged in deficit spending only recently matched in the the American economy. Employment climbed, as did demand and tax revenue from pay roll, goods, and services.
Really the very opposite of the story of the Great Recession we've been grappling with now.
To forestall the rise of another Hitler, America transplanted some of its manufacturing in Europe to foster co-operation among erstwhile foes and to ameliorate the suffering of brought on by destroyed manufacturing and infrastructure which would otherwise create more radicalism. This was the Marshall Plan. And it worked great especially for Germany, who kept its manufacturing and production base ever since.
Back in America, though the tradition of off-shoring jobs had just started, manufacturing was still strong and many of the Greatest Generation had union jobs - factory work yeah? - which allowed them to have a pension and benefits when they retired.
Reagan era union-busting replaced a manufacturing economy with on whaich ran on investment. Like during the 1920's. And like in the 20s, the stock market crashed in '87 and junk bonds made saving and loan bailouts necessary.
Sound familiar?
Nearly every talking point about the economy and unions is WRONG.
Even Obama is a million miles from the right direction and the Republicans offer only recipes for destruction.
Its all one vast stupid sad joke. And so unnecessary.
He's just pissed the vulture capitalists didn't get to make a colossal killing parting out the auto industry.
Mittens also forgets that at the time Obama did this the capital markets were frozen solid. There was no way the private sector could have managed a bankruptcy. They just didn't have access to the credit markets to do so. If Obama didn't do the right thing (and yeah, W just before) we would have been looking at a total collapse of the entire American automobile industry, including Ford. And it would have been forever.
Republicans should be for gun controls they keep shooting themselves in the foot. They need to open mouth and insert foot before speaking or thinking.
Mitt is 100% right. Obama's two goals are 1. spread the wealth and 2. strengthen the union.
Mitt's two goals are 1. Spread the poverty and 2. Make more money for his Cayman account.
Got Kool-Aid, Contessa?
Wow! Contessa, have another drink of that Republican Kool-aid. They love you, voting against your own rights. Anyways, what is so bad about everyone having a little more wealth. It worked during Clintons time. Everyone did ok under Clinton, even rich people.
Would like to see someone come up with the figures to show how much bankruptcy for the auto industries would have cost working taxpayers...unemployment..payouts to the CEO's, lost wages, empty houses, loss of income for business' due to no one having money to spend etc. etc.