Blessed Rent-Seeking For the Commonwealth
How wonderful the coming days, weeks, and months will be as we FINALLY find out what’s in this stimulus bill Turbacondunken. Seriously. I’m hoping for a small bailout of my student loans (actually, student loans must be getting bundled and traded like no one’s business: they’re a sure cash-flow producing commodity right now…). One of the problems with these so-called stimulus and bailout bills is, even if the money actually could do what the government thinks it could do, it has little chance of actually getting where it needs to go. Via Megan Mcardle comes this GREAT story discovered by Not Larry Sabato of a VA State Congressman Tommy Norment trying to divert the car bailout money from manufacturers to auto dealerships. And the best part about Mr. Norment? Yup, he owns a dealership:
The Virginia General Assembly is well known nationwide for how badly they can mess things up and make themselves public laughingstocks (abuser fees, anyone?). Well, it appears they are at it again- on an even bigger scale- this time jeopardizing the entire $25,000,000,000 (BILLION) national auto bailout.
SB1410 doesn’t look that harmful on its face. But dive into the bill, and you will be shocked at what one “Republican” is proposing to do to the free market. Basically, the bill requires that if an auto manufacturer decides to stop producing a line of cars, they are required to buy back all of the unsold inventory that dealers have. This bill eliminates all risk for auto dealers- and puts the entire risk on the manufacturers. Why would anyone want to make any business totally risk free? This makes no sense.
So, why introduce this bill now in 2009? That answer is easy. Car makers just received $25,000,000,000 (BILLION) in cash from the federal government. The point of this cash outlay was to give them time to reorganize without declaring bankruptcy (i.e. possibly eliminate some lines of under-performing brands). So this bill is basically a money transfer from the auto makers to the auto dealers should a line of cars be done away with. If every state did this, the entire federal auto bailout would go to car dealerships instead of the manufacturers!! But worst of all IT IS YOUR MONEY that went to the manufactures to save the industry that Norment is trying to grab!!! Will Congress have to pass a SECOND AUTO BAILOUT because greedy state leaders stole the federal cash they got to the manufacturers?
This legislation just stormed through the Senate 40-0 as no one apparently realized what a big deal this was. Why is Tommy Norment so interested in this issue? As Jeff Schapiro points out today- he is an auto dealer- and would directly benefit from the cash outlay in this bill. Norment is literallyappropriating money to himself through this new law. You can even see here where Norment lists his ownership of Grafton Dodge on his old website.
This should be (and might already be) criminal. Tommy Norment is not only voting for- but he is sponsoring a bill that would directly result in his own enrichment. What makes it worse is the money he is taking is FEDERAL TAXPAYER FUNDS that have been given to auto manufacturers in efforts to save the industry.
But Alberto, Andrew “The Conservative Soul” Sullivan says:
A Republican party that added more than $30 trillion to the future debt in a time of boom has no credible answer but raw partisanship for opposing $800 billion in the swiftest downturn in employment since the Great Depression. That’s the bottom line. The party that campaigned for eight years on the principle that “deficits don’t matter” has no good faith standing to oppose a measure that provides the minimum to ensure some kind of bottom in the looming depression.
It is sad to see Sullivan not only abandon his decency with his disgraceful Trig Trutherism Jihad, but his remaining conservative soul with justifying this pork-a-polooza spend-u-lus bill.
Sully suggested the GOP kneecapped Gregg. Doubt it. If the GOP had that sort of mussle they would kneecap Spector, Collins and Snowe. Could it be that Gregg did what he did because he thought the stimulus was wrong? And that Republicans, freed of party loyality to George Bush, really are doing the same? I remember when Andrew used to praise the need for different parties controlling the Presidency and Congress at the same time so as to restrict the power of government.
I was no fan of Bush Administration Domestic Spending, but does anyone remember George Bush adding 30 Trillion Dollars to the budget? That seems a tad high.
Even the Heritage estimate on this 800 billion bill is somewhere in the 3.5 trillion in future liability. Sure, I’m in agreement that the Republicans badly governed in Congress over the last few years, but that’s totally non-sequitur to this debate.
His Gregg stuff is just nutty.
Alberto, we still have to respect Sullivan’s authority!
Reagan compared to Obama, in their own words…
Not So Happy Days reported in the NYT Op-ed:
CONGRESS has made a terrible mistake. Amid a rhetorical debate centered on words like “crisis,” “emergency” and “catastrophe,” it acted too fast. While arguments were made about the stimulus bill’s specific components — taxpayer money for condoms, new green cars and golf carts for federal bureaucrats, another round of rebate checks — its more dangerous consequences were overlooked. And now the package threatens a return to the kind of stagflation last seen in the 1970s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/opinion/14ryan.html?_r=3&ref=opinion