Filed under: News, The Economy
President Obama's number one success story to date is the miraculous management of the auto industry bailout, which essentially ensured the economic stability of the Midwest. But will President Obama's leadership in righting GM and Chrysler's near-collapse be remembered when folks from "car country" return to the presidential polls in 2012? Black business news site The Network Journal offers an interesting angle on President Obama's prospects:
Playing defense on the economy, President Barack Obama may have found a potent "I told you so" argument in the rescue of General Motors. But will he get any credit for it?
Obama [recently visited] a Chrysler plant in Kokomo, Ind. ... with Vice President Joe Biden, reprising similar trips he made last summer to GM, Ford and Chrysler plants in Michigan and Illinois. His stewardship of the auto bailout - begun under President George W. Bush in the waning days of his term - could weigh heavily on the minds of voters throughout the industrial Midwest. Obama picked up key electoral votes there in 2008 but recently watched states like Michigan and Ohio elect Republican governors and members of Congress.
General Motors launched one of the largest initial public offerings in U.S. history [recently] more than a year after it was pushed into bankruptcy by the Obama administration at a taxpayer cost of about $50 billion. The rescue of GM and Chrysler was roundly criticized by many Republicans and tea party candidates who said the government should not have intervened to save the carmakers.
"Does anyone really believe that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington can successfully steer a multinational corporation to economic viability?" asked House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio when GM filed for bankruptcy in June 2009.
GM might prove Boehner wrong, giving Obama a stronger hand in the debate over how the government handled the auto meltdown. The bailout still remains unpopular with many Americans - and the futures of GM and Chrysler are far from certain - but GM's return to the New York Stock Exchange and an expected IPO from Chrysler in 2011 could give Democrats a vivid example of economic recovery.
"The critics said this would never work. But the critics were wrong," said Austan Goolsbee, Obama's top economist ... Ron Bloom, one of the leaders of the auto task force, said in an interview that the rescue averted "a swath of economic devastation that would have remained as a scar on our nation for a long, long time if the president had not done what he did."
Read the rest on The Network Journal.
As Tea Party and GOP members of Congress get ready to dig in their heels and fight President Obama on a myriad of issues that could be a big help to workers like the bail out of the auto industry, let's hope the people of the Midwest remember who saved their regional economy in the 2012 elections. In addition, all of America should take note of the fact that the party that wanted to let the auto industry die, no matter what the cost to millions, will be in large part at fault if few of President Obama's jobs creation plans go through. For while many in the Tea Party and GOP are against President Obama's ideas, not one segment of these so-called conservative groups has offered any viable alternatives.
I say "so-called conservative," because there is nothing conservative about sitting idly by and blocking President Obama's attempts to help the American people as our economy stagnates. That is not being conservative. That wicked behavior is more rightly termed "destructive."