GM to end 'jobs bank' Monday

[HeatherR]

This is great progress, but it seems that DC is still pretty negative against the Big 3. I agree borrowing money isn't a good thing, but GM has been scrutinized way more than the banks. Just this week Citi (which TOOK way more than GM) planned to buy a 50 million dollar plane!

Jobs Bank End Won't Holt D.C. Bias - from Detroit News

By Daniel Howes (Commentary)
Jan. 29, 2009

Detroit's tormenters should be happy now -- the dreaded jobs bank, the totem of Motor City dysfunction, is dead.
Or so says General Motors Corp., the beleaguered behemoth angling for continued financial favors from the federal government. Effective Monday, the controversial jobs bank will be suspended indefinitely, some 1,600 hourly workers officially will be laid off and GM will join Chrysler LLC and the United Auto Workers in deep-sixing a program that is a lightning rod for Detroit's many critics.

Good, because that relic of a bygone era devolved into a rhetorical club wielded repeatedly to beat Detroit's automakers and the UAW. And in the white-hot crucible of congressional hearings, the notion of paying workers not to work essentially nullified whatever progress Detroit and its union had, in fact, already made.

The jobs bank was an outrage to many outside the Detroit Bubble. The union had to let it go -- now -- if Detroit expected taxpayers to underwrite bridge loans to keep GM and Chrysler out of bankruptcy court, to avert a potential catastrophe for a cornerstone of American manufacturing.

In the peculiar double standards of today's Washington, however, it won't be enough. There will be more concessions in the coming weeks, more bowing and scraping to Detroit's self-appointed auditors on Capitol Hill, as deadlines approach for GM, Chrysler, the UAW and even Ford Motor Co. to demonstrate their "viability" to Democrats in Congress and the Obama White House.

The auto bosses, freed of the burden of corporate jet travel even as bankers, their lawyers and congressional leaders still enjoy theirs, will need to get their product plans blessed. They'll be expected to outline their expectations for building gas-electric hybrids and electric cars, irrespective of cost, oil prices or market demand.

Their business plans will be scrutinized by people whose connection to business seldom extends beyond extracting tax revenue (and campaign contributions) from it. And Chrysler, urged to merge or find a partner, likely will be forced to endure harsh questioning because it did exactly what some in Congress suggested -- get a potential partner in Fiat SpA of Italy.

But as House Democrats approve President Obama's $819 billion-plus stimulus package, including hundreds of billions in aid to states and education programs, will Jennifer Granholm's Michigan or Arnold Schwarzenegger's nearly bankrupt California, to name two, be obligated to demonstrate their responsible intentions to Congress?

Will they, other states and localities (Detroit, that paragon of rigorous financial management comes to mind) be required to show that federal largesse won't be wasted on half-baked infrastructure projects, or funneled into corrupt pay-offs, or consumed by union-dominated bureaucracies allied with Democrats, or used to prop up structurally inefficient government like that right here in Michigan?

Um, well, no -- which is one of many towering hypocrisies here in Bailout Nation. The people writing the checks to those who gorged on easy money in a consumption-crazy economy reserve the right to hold whoever they want accountable even as they give others a pass.

How do we know the dough, notwithstanding legitimate unemployment and food stamp benefits, will be well-spent? We don't, which can't so easily be said about automakers that have used the past few months refining -- and making public -- their plans for using taxpayer loans (not grants).

If accountability is required of automakers desperately trying to stay alive in exchange for $17.4 billion in taxpayer loans, why not similar expectations for those who stand to see hundreds of billions flow into their bureaucracies to ease the sting of recession? If an industrial union is expected to align its costs with the competition, if management's business plan must reflect the reality of today's market, shouldn't the recipients of astonishing amounts of public money at least be asked to do the same?

Of course they should. But the rules are different for bankers, elected officials and government bureaucrats -- not that any of our rule makers have the guts to actually say so.