Keane observations about life, politics and sports.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Did Politics Play a Role in Deciding Which Chrysler Dealerships Were Closed???

The question asked by the title of this post has been raised by various websites/blogs. Some have researched the past political contributions of the owners of the Chrysler dealerships targeted for closure and noticed the great majority contributed to Republican candidates. Today, we see a newspaper column in the San Francisco Examiner titled: "Is Obama closing GOP car dealers?" that addresses these concerns. This opening paragraph shows why even the appearance of politics playing a role in this is troubling:
There appears to be a side to the Chrysler bankruptcy that has the look of an ugly partisanship not seen in this town since Tricky Dick was in the White House composing his enemies list and checking it twice every night while watching the evening TV newscast.
Whether President Obama or his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are personally reviewing lists of past contributions and then deciding which dealerships get the axe doesn't even matter. When the government gets so involved in the private sector that they are deciding winners and losers it is inevitable that their motives will be questioned. Obama's reputation for vindictiveness and Emanuel's penchant for bare knuckles politics help fuel these concerns. However, they could have the demeanor of TV's Mr. Rogers and it would still be an awful idea for government officials to be deciding winners and losers in business.

Now that this question has been raised in one paper it will be interesting to see if the story gets fully researched by the major outlets. Somehow I doubt it will lead the ABC, CBS, or NBC evening news anytime soon.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Matthew Mulligan said...

Using governmental power to reward friends and punish enemies is nothing terribly new. In fact, the generations old vote-buying scheme using taxpayer funds is becoming new again. Look at the payoffs to ACORN and the UAW.

Unfortunately, Obama understands he is running out of money. He has said so Himself and He cannot convince the Chinese to buy more US debt notes. So what is a despot to do? Try to raise taxes! Of course it is difficult to raise revenue in an ailing economy, but Obama and even some states are trying new and innovative ways. ( for a top ten list of some of the more interesting new taxation methods under discussion, you can visit: http://firstconservative.com/blog/political-humor/political-humor-creative-taxation )

Obama will eventually run out of money though. And by then, He will have also created double digit inflation and double digit unemployment. This will herald the next conservative revol

May 29, 2009 at 8:36 AM

 

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