Congress Must Ensure that the Big Three Bailout is Made-in-America

[FreakinDJ]

Congress Must Ensure that the Big Three Bailout is Made-in-America

Alan Tonelson
Wednesday, December 10, 2008


Bully for the President, the President-elect, and Congress: They all supported the Executive Branch showering literally trillions of taxpayer dollars on the economy’s generally incompetent (or generally criminal?) Big Finance sector – with virtually no conditions or oversight provisions. But now Washington has drawn a clear line in the sand, and insisted that the beleaguered Detroit automakers show them detailed “plans” for viability before providing a relatively small (by Washington standards) bridge loan.

And bully for the automakers, their own worst enemies: They’ve followed their instructions after a disastrous initial round of Washington begging, and seem poised to receive temporary support – though clearly what tipped the balance was last Friday’s government report showing 533,000 American jobs lost in November.

Tragically, however, for all the noise about holding Detroit’s feet to the fire, both American leaders and the auto industry keep ignoring the most important conditions that any rescue package needs to contain: The more fuel-efficient vehicles that government aid helps Detroit produce must contain sky-high levels of U.S. content. Moreover, they need to be made in factories using domestically made machinery. And the research and development, design, and engineering they’ll require must be performed onshore as well – primarily by American citizens.

Unless the Big Three auto companies are required to curb their offshoring sharply, and the industry’s renewal is overwhelmingly Made-in-America, much of the benefit will leak overseas. Just as important, Washington will have squandered a golden opportunity to strengthen much of the rest of America’s struggling domestic manufacturing base, and thus help the nation produce its way out of the economic crisis. Setting this precedent – domestic production – is especially important because most of the taxpayer-funded economic recovery ideas in the air these days – including infrastructure building and the promotion of green manufacturing and green technologies – raise exactly the same issues.


http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=3091