George Bush dissapoints by proposing $700 billion bailout money be used to "rescue" auto industry

I was in Indianapolis in 1996 when George Bush made his first public appearance while beginning his run for the White House.  It was the Midwest GOP Leadership Conference, and he was a keynote speaker.  The room was abuzz with the rumors.  In the background, I had my doubts about the conservative credentials of this Texas Governor.  Not only had Republicans suffered the loss of the White House to Bill Clinton largely because of George H.W. Bush’s breaking of the “No New Taxes” pledge and an array of new government programs, but his son had already laid the foundation of an expensive “compassionate conservatism” in Texas.  He made new money available to fund “faith-based initiatives” and in 1996 was on his way to massive increases in education funding as well.  Though he proposed property tax decreases, he also proposed the implementation of an income tax to offset those decreases.  I was greatly concerned we had a like-father-like-son situation developing.  Boy was I wrong.  it was much worse than that!

The first four years of George W. Bush were alot like the years his father was President:  increased spending; government expansion programs; but, relatively conservative with a major income tax decrease and decreases in Capital Gains taxes.  Government began to expand under the cover of “doing good” through conservative as opposed to liberal social programs without removing all the old liberal programs even though he had a Republican Congress.  We didn’t notice this too much because we were in the midst of a war on terror and needed a strong leader.  Bush seemed to be that leader for most people in the country.  And he was re-elected.

The last four years, though, have been a Bush Administration disaster.  For the first two of those four years, a Republican Congress passed massive increases in spending which Bush readily signed into law which included outrageous pork-barrel spending.  An expansion of Medicare added tens of billions of dollars to the federal budget.  Since 2005, our federal debt has increased by $3 trillion to $10 trillion–that’s “trillion” not “billion”–(watch our debt rise before your eyes here and from the widget below).  But, this apparently was not the end.

When the financial crisis hit, it was the Bush Administration that put more than $400 billion into Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (et. al.) and shepherded a $700 billion bailout through Congress which came out on the other end as an $850 billion overall package.  This has morphed into more than a $1.2 trillion bailout.  And now we want to take over (temporarily or permanently) the auto industry with $14 billion more taking money from taxpayers to prop up the unions and failing management of a failing American industry which needs complete restructuring.  But with the political will and wisdom of Republicans (and some Democrats) in Congress, it died on the floor of the Senate.

Now for the piesta resistance.  Despite the clear evidence that Chrysler, GM and Ford need to be restructured, the Bush Administration has decided to provide $15 billion from the $700 billion bailout package to the auto companies.  To what end?  To keep them from bankruptcy?  I think Walter Williams skillfully debunks the theory that bankruptcy is bad and government bailouts help companies.

When a firm routinely fails to turn a profit, there are bankruptcy pressures. The firm’s resources, workers, building and capital become available to someone else who might put them to better use. When government steps in with a bailout, it enables executives to continue mismanaging resources.

This is a “no-brainer” conservative principle.  But men like George Bush buy into the fallacy that when crises hit they need to “do something.”  And we conservatives bemoan the lack of a Ronald Reagan figure to carry the message forward.  But do we really need that?  maybe we need to just take the ball and run with it in all the local platoons of family and party organization.  And then leaders will arise more consistently and broadly.

True political strength comes in numbers.  And I am not talking about advertising dollars.  That strength can be used both to overcome our political opponents and to hold the George Bush’s and Republican Congresses of the future to account.

If you don’t understand the urgency of our need to reform the conservative movement from the bottom up, just take a gander at what follows for at least five minutes and then get back to me.

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