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20081216
Jim DeMint - Bob Corker - Richard Shelby - Mitch McConnell - Foreign - Money - Politics - Construction - Auto - Makers - Government - Emergency - Legislation - Labor - Michigan - California - South Carolina - Alabama - Tennessee - Kentucky - German - Japanese - South Korean
"Foreign Auto Makers Won Billions in Government Subsidies: Southern States Gave [Foreign] Auto Companies Tax-breaks and Cash for Training." ... "To hear Southern Republicans tell the story, the financial burdens facing Detroit’s automakers are self-made troubles to be settled by the laws of Adam-Smith capitalism." ... "“We don’t think it is the role of government to intervene,” [South Carolina Republican Senator] Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C. [Republican-South Carolina]) told the Fox Business Network last week. “We need to let the market and the laws work the way they are already in place.”" ... "Yet this argument — that the government has no business interfering in free markets — ignores an increasingly frequent tradition among Southern states, which have fronted billions in local taxpayer dollars in the past two decades to attract foreign auto plants. Those incentives, arriving in the form of tax breaks, training for new employees and even land, have enticed [German automaker Bayerische Motoren Werke] BMW to South Carolina, [German automaker] Mercedes to Alabama and [Japanese automaker] Nissan to Tennessee. The result of the government subsidies has been the steady emergence of the South as an auto-manufacturing powerhouse. Some are dubbing it the “New Detroit” –  a region where real estate is cheap and the labor’s not unionized." ... "Not coincidentally, these Southern states are represented by the same coalition of GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] senators who led the fight against the recent Detroit [Michigan] bailout proposal. That legislation would have provided $14 billion in emergency bridge loans to General Motors and Chrysler, both of which say they lack the finances to survive the month. Rallying behind the animated opposition of GOP [Republican Senators] Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.[Tennessee]), Richard Shelby (Ala.[Alabama]), Mitch McConnell (Ky.[Kentucky) and South Carolina’s DeMint, Senate Republicans killed the legislation." ... "On Friday, the day following the Senate vote, Shelby told CNBC that if the Big Three had only managed their business operations as well as the foreign companies, known as transplants, they wouldn’t be scrambling now for a taxpayer-funded bailout." ... "“You look at the South,” Shelby said. “You take — not just Mercedes in my hometown — but BMW, Honda and all of them. These companies are flourishing with American workers made in America.”" ... "But the flourishing of the transplants didn’t come without significant taxpayer help. Shelby’s Alabama, for example, secured construction of a [German automaker] Mercedes-Benz plant in 1993 by offering $253 million in state and local tax breaks, worker training and land improvement. For [Japanese automaker] Honda, the state’s sweetener surrounding a 1999 deal to build a mini-van plant was $158 million in similar perks, adding $90 million in enticements when the company expanded the plant three years later. A 2001 deal with [Japanese automaker] Toyota left the company with $29 million in taxpayer gifts." ... "Alabama is hardly alone. Corker’s Tennessee recently lured [German automaker] Volkswagen to build a manufacturing plant in Chattanooga [Tennessee], offering the German automaker tax breaks, training and land preparation that could total $577 million. In 2005, the state inspired Nissan to relocate its headquarters from southern California by offering $197 million in incentives, including $20 million in utility savings." ... "In 1992, South Carolina snagged a BMW plant for $150 million in giveaways. In Mississippi in 2003, Nissan was lured with $363 million. In Georgia, a still-under-construction [South Korean automaker] Kia plant received breaks estimated to be $415 million. The list goes on." -By Mike Lillis -WashingtonIndependent.com

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Mitch McConnell - Bob Corker - Richard Shelby - Foreign - Money - Government - Politics - Auto - Makers - Working - People - Kentucky - Tennessee - Alabama - Michigan - US
"Do Southern Senators Really Want to Start a New War Between the States?" ... "When my Southern pals used to say "The South is gonna rise again," I doubt this is what they had in mind: A cadre of Southern [Republican] Senators, heavily financed by foreign automakers and special interests, declaring war on the American Dream of good wages and decent benefits. When did they decide that hard-working people trying to make a better life for themselves are the enemy?" ... "These Senators may want to think twice. Southern states have been benefiting from Northern taxes for years. If they start another War Between the States, the Federal gravy train might suddenly stop at the Mason-Dixon line." ... "Studies by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation have consistently shown that these Senators' states receive far more from the Federal government than they pay back in taxes. That's an irony that could lead to some Blue State bitterness: They love to preach about fiscal responsibility and lower taxes, but they keep dipping their beak into the Federal trough." ... "I believe the applicable Southern phrase is "a handful of gimme and a mouthful of much obliged."" ... "The numbers in [PDF] the Foundation's most recent study (warning: pdf) speak for themselves: [Kentucky Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell's Kentucky took in $1.45 from the Feds for every dollar it paid in taxes. That's a 45 cent free ride. [Tennessee Republican Senator] Bob Corker's Tennessee received at 30-cent Federal giveaway. And [Alabama Republican Senator] Richard Shelby's Alabama extracted a whopping 71-cent subsidy from Northern taxpayers." ... "What about Michigan? They lost 31 cents for every dollar they paid. In other words, McConnell, Shelby, and Corker have been skimming a percentage off these autoworkers' taxes for years on behalf of their constituents. Now, when the same Michigan taxpayers need help, these Senators are telling them to get lost." -By RJ Eskow -HuffingtonPost.com

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Corporate - Government - Christmas - Debt - History - Accounting - Politics - Homeowners - Auto - Military - Space
"Bailout payout tops $8 trillion." ... "As the holiday season commences, it’s worth taking stock of the last gift that [Republican] President George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have left for U.S. [United States] taxpayers." ... "It’s a package of about $8.7 trillion dollars’ worth of potential taxpayer commitments for loans, guarantees and other bailout goodies for businesses and distressed homeowners." ... "Amid the tissue paper:" ... "• More than $1.5 trillion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. [Corporation] loan guarantees, including a $139 billion assist to the lending arm of General Electric Corp." ... "• $1.8 trillion in cash, tax breaks and loan guarantees doled out from the Treasury Department to taxpayers, financial institutions and credit companies." ... "• $300 billion for homeowners from the Federal Housing Authority." ... "• $25 billion in assistance for auto companies from a program overseen by the Energy Department, which is separate from the bailout proposal that tanked last week in the Senate." ... "• And $5 trillion worth of new money, loan guarantees and loosened lending requirements from the Federal Reserve Bank." ... "According to Bianco Research President James Bianco, who crunched these numbers, that amounts to more government aid and assistance than nine other historic bailouts and big government outlays combined." ... "The New Deal, for instance, cost an estimated $32 billion in its day, which would be about $500 billion in today’s dollars. The Marshall Plan cost about $12.7 billion, which is the equivalent of a paltry $115.3 billion. The Louisiana Purchase? The French got $15 million, which would be worth about $217 billion today." ... "If you take those three items, add in the adjusted costs of the Race to the Moon, the savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the Iraq war, the Vietnam War and assistance for NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration ], you still get to just $3.92 trillion — not even half of the taxpayers’ exposure today, according to Bianco." -By Jeanne Cummings -Politico.com via -AP

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20081213
Business - Politics - Election - Auto - Manufacturing - Law - California - Mich - Ohio
"Auto bailout's death seen as a Republican blow at unions: For some Senate Republicans, a vote against the [American auto manufacturing] bailout was a vote against the United Auto Workers, and against organized labor in general." ... ""Handing a defeat to labor and its Democratic allies in Congress was also seen as a preemptive strike in what is expected to be a major battle for the new Congress in January: the unions' bid for a so-called card check law that would make it easier for them to organize workers, potentially reversing decades of declining power. The measure is strongly opposed by business groups." ... ""This is the Democrats' first opportunity to pay off organized labor after the election," read an e-mail circulated Wednesday among Senate Republicans. "This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it." ... "One major car dealer said conservatives let political ideology get in the way of protecting the country's interests." ... ""Being a Republican myself, I feel very betrayed by the Republican Party right now," said Beau Boeckmann, vice president of Galpin Motors Inc. in North Hills [California]. Galpin has the nation's largest Ford dealership as well as lots where it sells eight other foreign and domestic brands." ... "[Michigan Democratic Representative] Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.[ Democratic-Michigan]), a labor ally, said Friday that Republican senators who opposed the bailout might have "wanted to crush a longtime political rival, the United Auto Workers," without concern for the economic consequences." ... "[Ohio Democratic Senator] Sen. Sherrod Brown (D[Democratic]-Ohio) characterized the GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] opposition as "class-warfare assault by the Republicans."" ... ""They never ask about banker salaries. . . . They never asked they give money back," he said." (1, 2) -By Jim Puzzanghera with contributions by Ken Bensinger -LAtimes

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Bob Corker - Richard Shelby - Jim DeMint - Mitch McConnell - Foreign - Money - Politicians - Auto - Makers - Michigan - US - Workers - Emergency - Law - Tennessee - Alabama - Kentucky - South Carolina - Georgia - Japanese - German - South Korean
"Meet the GOP's [Republican's] wrecking crew: Why did a small group of Southern Republicans turn the auto bailout into a demolition derby? Introducing the senators who hate unions and love foreign cars." ... "On July 15, [Tennessee Republican Senator] Bob Corker was a happy man." ... ""I cannot think of a more exciting day, even more so than Election Night, for me," the Republican senator from Tennessee said in a conference call that day. The reason for his elation was the announcement that [German automaker] Volkswagen, lured by up to $500 million worth of incentives from the state government, had agreed to build a $1 billion plant near Chattanooga, Tenn. [Tennessee.] That is, not just in his home state, but in the suburbs of the city he once served as mayor." ... "Add VW [Volkwagen] to [Japan automaker] Nissan, which already has two plants and its North American headquarters in Tennessee, and you begin to see why Corker was so aggressive this month about trying to block -- or at least dramatically rewrite -- a proposal to float billions of dollars in emergency loans to domestic automakers. Most of the focus during this debate has been on lawmakers who represent Michigan, the home of the Big Three -- Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. But Corker represents the other side of the coin: Tennessee and other Southern states have recently come to depend on foreign automakers and their non-union factories. If you're from those parts, what's good for American car companies may no longer be what's good for the country -- because your economy now depends on their foreign competitors instead." ... "Expect to hear more not just from the very vocal Bob Corker, but from the rest of a core group of Southern senators whose bread is buttered by the Japanese, Germans and Koreans. Here's a guide to the major players."

"[Alabama Republican Senator] Richard Shelby, R-Ala. [Republican-Alabama]"
"Foreign auto plants: [German automaker] Mercedes-Benz, [South Korean automaker] Hyundai, [Japanese automaker] Honda"

"[South Carolina Republican Senator] Jim DeMint, R-S.C. [Republican-South Carolina]"
"Foreign auto plants: [German automaker] BMW [Bayerische Motoren Werke]"

"[Kentucky Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. [Republican-Kentucky]"
"Foreign auto plants: [Japanese automaker] Toyota"

"[Tennessee Republican Senator] Bob Corker, R-Tenn. [Republican-Tennessee]"
"Foreign auto plants: Two [Japanese automaker] Nissan plants, as well as the company's U.S. [United States] headquarters; [German automaker] Volkswagen will open near Chattanooga [Tennessee] in 2011"

"As mayor of Chattanooga, he [Corker] reportedly conceived the idea for the site that will soon become home to the [German automaker] Volkswagen plant, and was instrumental in its development. He organized efforts to lure [Japanese automaker] Toyota to the area, and when that failed, he had VW execs [executives] and other top state politicians over to his house for dinner." ... "Georgia's two Republican senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isaakson, both voted against the plan as well. Their state has a big [South Korean automaker] Kia factory coming in soon." (1, 2) -By Alex Koppelman and Mike Madden with contributions by Vincent Rossmeier and Gabriel Winant -Salon

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Bob Corker - Richard Shelby - Foreign - Money - Auto - Makers - Michigan - Workers - US - Japan - Germany - Alabama - Tennessee
"Anger Grips Auto Workers: Critic of a Rescue, [Tennessee Republican Senator] Sen. Corker Faces Backlash at Home." ... "As the workers and residents of this small town [Spring Hill, Tennessee] that launched the Saturn automobile see it, there are several villains in the collapse of the automakers' rescue plan." ... "But what stuns many in this place defined by the General Motors auto plant and its 4,200 workers is that no person played a larger role in the demise of autoworker hopes than their own Sen. Bob Corker (R[Republican]), who is now regarded by some here with the kind of disdain reserved for traitors." ... "Corker emerged as one of the leading critics of the rescue plan passed by the House. He lashed into the carmaker chief executives when they came to Washington looking for help. And it was Corker's alternative proposal, which was a plan that would have been tougher on union workers, that ultimately failed." ... "In a dozen interviews with workers here, many suspected that he only feigned interest in rescuing Detroit's Big Three. Instead, they say, he wants to crush GM [General Motors] and its union to benefit foreign automakers, such [Japan's] Nissan and [Germany's] Volkswagen, who have opened or are opening nonunionized plants in the state." ... ""We're deeply disappointed in Senator Corker -- that's the official statement," said Mike Herron, union chief at the GM plant here. "But actually my members want to choke him."" ... "The anger of the workers and the harshness of their words reflect the larger tension between the old [Michigan] Detroit-based domestic auto industry, with its unionized workforce, and the new [foreign] transplant industry in the nonunion South. Emotions were stoked by the fact that GM, citing the economic downturn, had just announced that it will halt production at the plant for January and the first week of February." ... "Corker "has somehow ignored the fact that there's a major GM plant in his own state," said Ben McFarlane, who retired from the plant this summer and opened a local bar where many workers go. "And if this plant goes, then my business goes, this whole town goes, and the effects cascade across the country."" ... "At a news conference and in interviews yesterday, Corker, a millionaire real estate developer, took pains to depict himself as sympathetic to workers and responsive to his state's interests." ... "But Herron, like many here, pressed the idea that the foreign automakers had been involved in stalling the plan." ... ""It's in their best interest to see us not succeed," Herron said. "Who were the two biggest critics of the rescue? [Republican] Senator Shelby from Alabama and Corker -- and both preside over states that have given hundreds of millions to have foreign automakers to open shop here."" (1, 2) -By Peter Whoriskey with contributions by Julie Tate and Lucy Shackelford -WashingtonPost

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20081212
Auto - Makers - Legislation - Workers - Emergency - Government - Politics - Economy - History - Cheney - Michigan
"Senate Republicans kill auto bailout bill." ... "Republican opposition killed a $14-billion auto industry bailout plan in the Senate on Thursday night, putting the future of [United States] U.S. automakers in doubt and threatening to deliver another blow to the economy." ... "The measure died after a last-ditch effort by Senate Democratic leaders to strike a compromise that would have lured enough support to save the legislation, which was crafted in consultation with the [Republican President Bush] White House." ... "The bill's failure raises the possibility of bankruptcy by one or more of [Michigan state's] Detroit's Big Three and puts new pressure on [Republican] President Bush to authorize emergency loans for the automakers from the $700-billion Wall Street rescue fund, a step he has adamantly refused to take." ... "The collapse of General Motors, Chrysler or Ford -- along with many of their suppliers and dealers -- could throw hundreds of thousands more workers onto the growing unemployment rolls and further cloud the closing days of the [Republican President] Bush administration." ... ""If we don't do this, we will be known as the party of [Republican President] Herbert Hoover forever," [Republican Vice President] Cheney told them, according to a Senate Republican aide, evoking the president whose inaction is widely blamed for helping trigger the Great Depression in the early 1930s." (1, 2) -By Jim Puzzanghera with contributions by Ken Bensinger -LAtimes

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Auto - Industry - Legislation - Sports - History - Michigan - Ky
"Ky. Sen. Bunning, ex-Tiger, snubbed for autos vote: Ky. Sen. [Kentucky Republican Senator Jim] Bunning, ex-Tigers [baseball] pitching great, gets booted from Detroit[ Michigan]-area fair for autos vote." ... "Bunning was kicked off the schedule after he helped derail an auto-industry loan package in the Senate Thursday night." ... "Bunning is a Hall of Famer who pitched in Detroit from 1955 to 1963." -AP via -CNN

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Bob Corker - David Vitter - Richard Shelby - Foreign - Money - Auto - Makers-Michigan - Working - People - US - Military - Japan - Tenn - La - Germany - Korea - Ala
"Anger grows in Michigan over Southern opposition to auto loans." ... "Mark Dobias, a small-town lawyer from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, hasn't always been the domestic auto industry's biggest fan. But when it became clear that a few senators from places like Alabama and Louisiana were determined to do anything to block any aid to General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford, it got to him." ... ""This is regional economic warfare. Pure and simple. The wounded Rustbelt being bayoneted in the throat by economic interests in the East and Sunbelt with aid from their political toadies," he wrote me. He's normally a laid-back guy with a puckish sense of humor, but the hypocrisy was, he said, a bit much." ... ""Michigan is a great state. It has good people - hard-working people who make things. The nation has gained from its natural resources and industrial capacity. And now … we will remember this in the same way that Georgia remembers William Tecumseh Sherman," the union general whose armies laid the Southern state waste." ... "What was highly unusual, in Michigan's quarrelling political culture, was the unanimity with which the state's various factions united in support of trying to help the automakers - and disdain for the senators who would prevent that effort." ... "The thoroughly Republican Detroit News normally denounces any government aid program. But not this time. In a highly rare front-page editorial, it pleaded "we urge the Senate, please give Detroit a chance to make things right … we appeal to Senate Republicans to act not in support of the domestic auto makers, but in the interest of the national economy and national security - we still need an arsenal of democracy."" ... "True, the News did publish a piece by freshman [Tennessee Republican Senator] Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn. [Republican-Tennessee]) that called on Congress to impose much harsher conditions on the companies and their workers as a precondition for any aid. He also called for more involvement by Congress in actually running these companies. But the newspaper shot back, that "like most of Washington, Corker is ill-informed of the forces roiling the domestic auto industry."" ... "There was bitterness, too, in Detroit [Michigan] at the men blocking the bailout. Some cattily noted that when [Louisiana Republican Senator] Sen. David Vitter (R., La. [Republican-Louisiana]) vowed a filibuster, it was the first time he had gotten national press attention since being linked to a Washington prostitution scandal." ... "Sens. [Alabama Republican Senator] Richard Shelby (R., Ala. [Republican-Alabama]) and Corker both represent states where foreign, nonunion automakers have significant operations. Mr. Corker, a freshman who won a narrow victory in 2006, is insisting that the United Auto Workers accept wage cuts so that workers make no more than nonunion workers in the South, such as the [Japan's] Nissan employees in his state." ... "Alabama, a right-to-work state, has granted vast concessions to win [auot manufacturing] plants operated by [Japan's] Toyota, [Germany's] Mercedes-Benz, [Japan's] Honda, and [South Korea's] Hyundai." -By Jack Lessenberry -ToledoBlade.com

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Mitch McConnell - Bob Corker - Richard Shelby - Auto - Makers - Workers - Lawmakers - Politics - Kentucky - Alabama - Tennessee
"Machinists Union Blames McConnell, Shelby and Corker for Killing Auto Rescue Plan." ... "The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) today rejected attempts by a trio of Senate Republicans to deny responsibility for their campaign to force General Motors, Chrysler and Ford into bankruptcy and possible liquidation." ... ""In a move worthy of Benedict Arnold, a handful of Senate Republicans this week successfully conspired to deny federal aid to [United States] U.S. automakers," said IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger. "It ranks second only to their attempt to blame autoworkers themselves for failing to provide sufficient concessions to satisfy GOP [Republican] demands."" ... "The campaign to blame autoworkers began immediately after the effort by [Kentucky Republican Senator] Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Alabama Republican [Senator] Sen. Richard Shelby and Tennessee Republican [Senator] Bob Corker to block the $14 billion aid package for automakers." ... ""With the U.S economy on the brink of a deep and prolonged recession, it is unthinkable that these lawmakers would deliberately kill an effort that could save as many as three million American jobs," said Buffenbarger."

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GoIAM.org

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