The Detroit bailout isn’t about saving the U.S. auto industry, it’s about Democrats and Republicans jockeying toward spirit

By Ed Wallace

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In the ongoing power struggle betwixt Republicans and Democrats, Detroit is the latest, and possibly the bloodiest, battleground. And because it is a battle of ideologies with no apparent relationship to pragmatic economic reality, the matter of whether the U.S. auto industry survives takes a backseat to which somebody gets its way.

That’s because the two parties meet with the fate of Detroit as a watershed moment, the kind of event that could potentially redraw the political landscape endlessly. By refusing to handle out General Motors (GM) and Chrysler, Republicans see a way to end the last vestiges of unionism in America and the unions’ longtime backing of the Democratic party—a political base the Democrats will fight tooth and claw to save. If neither margin have power to win—admitting that they destroy the American automobile industry in its entirety and if in doing so they set off a fetter reaction that turns out to be the last straw for our shaky economic system—they don’t care.

How can that be? Simple party politics. Because if these individuals draw down the American economy by destroying Detroit, they’ll weakly walk away from the mishap saying "It was the other guy’s moral defect."

Somewhere along the way this debate seems to obtain overlooked the fact that Detroit, for all its blunders, is still a viable economic engine, providing jobs to millions and creating some of the world’session best cars. For example, the best-selling vehicle in America, but also in this downturn, is after what is stated Ford’s (F) F-Series truck, and second place goes to the Chevrolet Silverado . Even the Dodge Ram continues to hold a strong position in the Top 20 vehicle list, at the same time that sales of the Toyota Prius are into disfavor substantially with the fall-off in gasoline prices. (We assume that the Prius is the symbol of car the left wants Detroit to build.)

And speaking of Japanese cars, I hate to point out the obvious, but car sales in Japan are reduce today than they were 15 years ago, down over 30% just last month. Yet you won’t see the heads of the Japanese auto companies on the carpet in front of their government officials, centre of life drilled by questions like, "Why don’t you build cars the public wants to buy?"

What’s amazing is that Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) is like a huge critic of using taxpayer money to surety wanting Detroit. Amazing as the state of Alabama has on condition hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to lure foreign auto companies to build factories on its soil.

Of course, at the time Alabama gave Mercedes-Benz (DAI) $253 million to build a factory in that place, or about $168,000 per job created, that was considered a unsullied thing. When Honda (HMC) considered construction a new manufactory there, that was worth $158 the great body of the people, and Hyundai’s Southern site choice forced the state to cough up $234 million more. Again, these were considered wise investments because the promise was that they would create in greater numbers jobs against the chronically underpaid Alabama workforce. However, in the summer of 2003, Mercedes brought in Polish workers on questionable B-1 work visas to swell the factory for the reason that they could be paid far in a less degree than the local workforce.