Democrats, liberals and other traditional President Bush detractors must always give credit where credit is due, and this time the president deserves the credit. He bucked his own party on the issue of immigration and worked closely with the Democrats to no avail on this major legislation. His own party fought him tooth and nail. He also stood up and supported real standards within the education system in the No Child Left Behind legislation. That legislation is far from perfect, but it is a start. He has confronted the part of his own party that does not believe in the loan, or bailout, that has been proposed for Detroit. Taking on senators who have supported him in the war and in domestic policy can’t be easy in the last month of his administration when he would like to leave with lots of goodwill.
He is about to turn on a green light for the $15 billion loan to the industry. It’s described by the White House as a bridge loan to somewhere, either financial solvency or a structured bankruptcy. Republican senators are shamelessly exploiting this national corporate debacle in an effort to get cheap political points at the expense of one of America’s core industries. That industry right now may be a handful of fat cat executives, but it’s also tens of millions of workers and retirees. This labeling, however, lets us forget that these workers and retirees are someone’s grandparents, parents, fathers, daughters, mother, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. They represent family members of tens of millions of Americans. In short, this is a community problem, not too different from how your local church responds when there has been a fire, flood or some local tragedy in the neighborhood.
Sure, maybe the UAW should be looking at future cuts in pay and benefits, but my questions to the naysayers on this government loan are the following:
- When Honda and Toyota successfully sought to build plants in the South to access our markets, did we demand that they pay our workers what their counterparts were getting at General Motors, Chrysler or Ford? Did we hurt our own people for the benefit of Japanese corporate fat cats?
- Did we sweeten the deal for these foreign companies by offering them goodie bags full of land deals, specialized zoning and tax credits?
- How many factories does Detroit have in Japan? If the wages are so much less there then why hasn’t the Japanese government encouraged our automotive companies to come there? If there are none, then why not?
Does this seem fair to you? Of course not, but the Japanese model has been touted in America under the guise of “Detroit doesn’t get it.”
So, maybe President Bush has finally figured out that the free trade he and others have been touting really isn’t so free after all. The American workers in Detroit are realizing that their counterparts may be earning substandard wages and benefits just a few states away on a very similar assembly line. The challenge then isn’t to take more money from working people. It is to help them keep what they have and to still be part of the American dream. President Bush understands that, and he is providing the leadership we need in his final days.
