Big Three battle comes down to party politics

COMMENTARY

By Ed Wallace

updated 3:34 p.m. ET Dec. 15, 2008

In the ongoing power struggle between Republicans and Democrats, Detroit is the latest, and possibly the bloodiest, battleground. And because it is a battle of ideologies with no apparent connection to pragmatic economic reality, the matter of whether the U.S. auto industry survives takes a backseat to which party gets its way.

That's because the two parties see the fate of Detroit as a watershed moment, the kind of event that could potentially redraw the political landscape forever. By refusing to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, Republicans see a way to end the last vestiges of unionism in America and the unions' longtime backing of the Democratic party — a political base the Democrats will fight tooth and claw to save. If neither side can win — if they destroy the American automobile industry in its entirety and if in doing so they set off a chain reaction that turns out to be the last straw for our shaky economic system — they don't care.

How can that be? Simple party politics. Because if these individuals bring down the American economy by destroying Detroit, they'll simply walk away from the disaster saying "It was the other guy's fault."

Somewhere along the way this debate seems to have overlooked the fact that Detroit, for all its blunders, is still a viable economic engine, providing jobs to millions and creating some of the world's best cars. For example, the best-selling vehicle in America, even in this downturn, is still Ford's F-Series truck, and second place goes to the Chevrolet Silverado. Even the Dodge Ram continues to hold a strong position in the Top 20 vehicle list, while sales of the Toyota Prius are down substantially with the fall-off in gasoline prices. (We assume that the Prius is the type of car the left wants Detroit to build.)

And speaking of Japanese cars, I hate to point out the obvious, but car sales in Japan are lower today than they were 15 years ago, down over 30 percent just last month. Yet you won't see the heads of the Japanese auto companies on the carpet in front of their government officials, being drilled with questions like, "Why don't you build cars the public wants to buy?"

What's amazing is that Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) is such a huge critic of using taxpayer money to bail out Detroit. Amazing because the state of Alabama has provided hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to lure foreign auto companies to build factories on its soil.

Of course, when Alabama gave Mercedes-Benz $253 million to build a factory there, or about $168,000 per job created, that was considered a good thing. When Honda considered building a new factory there, that was worth $158 million, and Hyundai's Southern site choice forced the state to cough up $234 million more. Again, these were considered wise investments because the promise was that they would create more jobs for the chronically underpaid Alabama workforce. However, in the summer of 2003, Mercedes brought in Polish workers on questionable B-1 work visas to expand the factory because they could be paid far less than the local workforce.

So you had Alabama gifting state tax dollars to Mercedes' factory, only to discover that some of the jobs it created went to much cheaper labor imported from Eastern Europe.

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