Jim DeMint on 'GM's Political Bankruptcy'

[4sarge]

Jim DeMint on 'GM's Political Bankruptcy'


I've spoken on several occasions with people on Jim DeMint's staff--though, as much as I'd like, never to the South Carolina senator himself--but my existence on some sort of mailing list is absolutely news to me. Nevertheless, I received a piece of outreach correspondence a few minutes ago from the senator's office, and thought it would pass it along:

June 10, 2009

Dear Friend,

The bankruptcy filing of General Motors last week didn’t have to be this way.

GM could have – and as many of us argued at the time, should have – declared bankruptcy last December. Our bankruptcy laws exist to give troubled companies a chance to restructure their business models and get out from under crushing debts.

But now, after we lost $50 billion in a misguided bailout scheme, the bankruptcy GM is entering is not even real bankruptcy. It’s a political bankruptcy, brokered by the Obama administration to reward the very people who helped to destroy the company in the first place.

Under the agreement, investors and creditors were wiped out, while the federal government, the Canadian government, and the labor bosses will own 90 percent of the new company.

Going forward, GM won’t be able to make the tough business decisions necessary to get back to profitability. They will be second-guessed and overruled by politicians in Washington. Meanwhile, as GM becomes a government program, car companies that are succeeding will have to compete at an unfair disadvantage – all because the labor bosses funneled millions of dollars to Democrat candidates over the last few election cycles.

It isn’t fair, and it needs to stop.

Broken companies and greedy labor bosses shouldn’t be rewarded for their failures. Washington needs to get out of this quagmire before politicians do to our auto industry what they’ve already done to our financial system.

A free auto market will help revive our industrial economy, and give GM its best chance to succeed. As always, freedom will work…if we let it.

Sincerely,


Jim DeMint
United States Senator

He called me a "friend." How wonderful! If I were on Sen. Harry Reid's e-mail list, I wonder if the majority leader would address me as "Dear Backstabbing, Critical Prick." I would hope so. That would just about make my day.
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All kidding aside, I like Sen. DeMint, and look forward to this time next year, when I will be one of his newest constituents. At a time when we need it most, DeMint is a conservative through and through, a man who understands the fiscal weaknesses of the Democrats and the need for responsible leadership while not forgetting, in the process, the social and societal aspects of the conservative movement. And he gets it. He gets why GM was played as a political pawn, when a growth economy facilitated by a hands-off federal government could have seen the venerable American automaker prospering instead of floundering. He gets that this is all about a power grab, cleverly disguised as caring and empathy.

Time and time again, as this adminstration and this Congress has been borrowing and spending and borrowing some more, DeMint has been on top of it. His closing sentence here, that "freedom will work . . . if we let it," should be a rallying cry for a GOP marked by a renewed advocacy for a Jeffersonian approach to governance.

After being in the news nearly every day during the first three or four months of Barack Obama's presidency, DeMint has been fairly quiet in recent weeks. Normally, I'd attribute it to the glorious weather down in the Palmetto State--I, for one, love the beaches on Sullivan's Island and Isle of Palms--but in DeMint's case, perhaps his Republican colleagues are starting to catch on, and catch up.

Let's hope so.
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