Robert Lutz, vice chair of GM, tosses off this nugget of revisionist history in a quote from Monday’s NY Times article about the bankruptcy of GM:
“…for the first time in our history, the American auto industry has the ear of the administration.”
Is he saying that in the entire history of the American auto industry, this is the first time they’ve had a hearing with the president and congress? That’s preposterous on its face. A little over 50 years ago the auto industry worked hand-in-hand with President Dwight D. Eisenhower to have the Interstate Highway System built with federal funds. Not to mention numerous times the auto industry successfully blocked safety regulations and fuel efficiency requirements.
Even if we limit his statement just to GM and the Obama administration it’s still ridiculous. According to Bloomberg News, General Motors spent $2.8 million lobbying congress in just the first three months of 2009. According in the Center for Media and Democracy GM spent $8.8 million lobbying congress in 2006. Are we supposed to believe they didn’t have the ear of the administration until this week? What they didn’t have until this week was a taxpayer injection of $50 billion.
GM got our money despite taxpayer sentiment in the US:
The disconnect between how the auto industry is perceived in Detroit and in the rest of the country was underscored in an April survey by CNN; it showed 76 percent of Americans favored allowing GM to fall into bankruptcy rather than extending further government aid.
Allison Kilkenny has a great post comparing GM to an abusive spouse:
Only in this country would a corporation’s executives have the nerve to close factories and relocate them to Mexico to exploit cheap labor, systematically work to suppress public mass transit and fuel-efficient vehicles, shelter its revenues from taxation in multiple offshore havens, and still crawl to the government weeping and crying when it needs money.
Not only that, but the government will hand GM another bailout check with taxpayer money without asking for anything in return, effectively socializing the investment’s risk whilst privatizing the profit…again.
Perhaps I just need to start saving $8 million a year so I can get the ear of this administration.
Image from Idiocracy
