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June 02, 2009 C-SPAN

Ted Poe is apparently undeterred by Nate Silver's reporting.

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I just wonder why Obama's approach is so very different with the automakers than it is with the banking industry:

General Motors filed for bankruptcy on Monday morning, submitting its reorganization papers to a federal clerk in Lower Manhattan.

G.M. said it had $82.3 billion in assets and $172.8 billion in debts. Its largest creditors were the Wilmington Trust Company, representing a group of bondholders holding $22.8 billion in debts, and affiliates of the United Auto Workers union, representing nearly $20.6 billion in employee obligations.

The filing itself seemed anticlimactic. It was a simple procedure done thousands of times each day across the country, by individuals and business alike. But not usually, as in this case, by companies like G.M. that have woven themselves into the fabric of America culture.

The company was forced into the filing by President Obama, who is betting that by temporarily nationalizing the onetime icon of American capitalism, he can save at least a diminished automaker that is competitive.

[...] The bankruptcy of General Motors culminates a remarkable four months of confrontation between Washington and Detroit that is expected to result in a drastic downsizing of the company. It also places the government in uncharted territory as a business owner, as it takes a majority ownership stake in the company during its restructuring.

Why aren't we forcing the "too big to fail" banks to downsize?

The Congressional GOPers (Party of Corporate Pork) are so, so upset when the wrong people are on the losing end in government bailouts. See if you can spot the delicious irony!

Dozens of lawmakers are challenging the authority of President Obama's auto task force, saying its swift restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler is unjust to investors, dealers and others.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner yesterday, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) said the auto task force is waging a "war on capital" by favoring the United Auto Workers, who are being offered a 39 percent equity stake in the new GM, over bondholders, many of them small investors and retirees, who are being offered 10 percent.

"Choosing sides between equal classes of creditors sets a terrible precedent -- one that could cause serious long term challenges to the financing marketplace by eroding investor confidence at the worst time in our recessionary period," Hensarling wrote in a letter signed by 20 other House members.

Yes, I know there's more to the story. I know Chrysler promised there would be no job losses or closings (which I put right up there with "the check is in the mail). But the absolute cojones of the Republicans, to complain about a protected class - well, I can't let that go without comment.

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A pretty good barometer of Republicans' utter desperation these days is just how farflung from reality their attempts to characterize President Obama are getting to be.

Newt Gingrich, who's clearly preparing for a 2012 White House run, was interviewed yesterday on Fox by Greta Van Susteren. Gingrich has been trying desperately to smear Obama as a weak leader, while cozying up to the GOP's tea-bagging populist wing.

So he hit on a way to hit both sweet spots in one swell foop: Smear Obama as an incipient authoritarian.

The subject was Obama's press conference earlier this week. First in the order, of course, he had to blame Obama's popularity on the media: "I think the Washington White House press corps has taken such a pathetic dive with this president that they ought to just be part of his PR firm!"

But then he there was this exchange:

Van Susteren: Well, you know, Fox News Channel got, quote, punished -- Fox News Channel didn't get a question the other night -- Major Garrett, our White House correspondent -- because the Fox broadcast, not the Fox News Channel, but the Fox broadcast decided not to air the press conference.

Gingrich: Right. Which should tell all of you about the abuse of power inherent in this administration. They now control General Motors, they basically control Chrysler, they control Citibank, they control AIG, and they are prepared to punish people.

I think that's very dangerous, to have a president who thinks he should get up in the morning and punish Americans. You know, appease foreigners, bow to the Saudi king, embrace the Venezuelan dictator, and punish Americans? I think that's a very dangerous attitude.

Gingrich is clearly counting on the public to be like Fox News anchors: They have a convenient case amnesia about the previous eight years of wiretapping, screw-the-public Republican rule.

But notice the underlying meme here: Obama is an incipient dictator who will punish his enemies and rule with an iron fist. Which, of course, is exactly what we're hearing from the growing militia contingent.

And then conservatives get all bent out of shape when someone like the DHS accidentally points out the growing similarities between them and right-wing extremists. Huh. Gee, wonder how that could happen.

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We all know that Glenn Beck is making a career out of saying bizarre things and getting all kinds of facts wrong.

Yesterday he was downright brazen about trotting out flat falsehoods as part of his rants. The first came when he started ripping President Obama for supposedly overusing his teleprompter. In the process, he resurrected the myth of Saint Sarah "Evita" Palin and how she read her entire speech without the use of a teleprompter after it broke down on her.

Well, yeah, except said story is complete BS, though that didn't prevent Palin from repeating it anyway.

But, as with all right-wing populists, the myth and its maintenance are more important than piddling little facts.

Such as Beck's subsequent rant about the New York City flyover fiasco, in which he painted a portrait of the scene that made it seem as though Obama himself were on board the plane:

Beck: Then yesterday we had the 'secret photo op' of Air Force One flying over Manhattan. Which gave a lot of people flashbacks to 9/11. See all those people on the street? They were evacuating buildings. These people are running in fear because the president flew his plane over for a photo shoot! He's yelling at General Motors, and now he's yelling at Chrysler -- which the unions own, and we own -- General Motors -- Now, he talks to them about coming to meet Congress on their private planes. But he's taking Air Force One, a jumbo 747, out from Virginia to fly it up to New York for a photo op!

In case there's any confusion besides Beck's (which can't be fixed, it seems): Obama not only was nowhere near the plane's flight (this was only one of several planes that serve as AF1), he was furious that it had been authorized at all.

But telling his audience that would ruin Beck's little fable.

I can't begin to tell you just how little sympathy I have for the Wall Street bankers who bitch and moan about how impossible it would be to live in NYC on "only" $250K. (My kid manages to live there on considerably less.)

No, my sympathies lie with people like this who worked hard, played by the rules and are now caught in an economic disaster:

As the Obama administration prepares to send Chrysler into bankruptcy court, with General Motors possibly to follow, one of the biggest losers may be the automakers' current and future retirees, a group of nearly 1 million people who could see their pensions and health-care funds slashed by tens of billions of dollars.

The loss could pose political trouble for the Obama administration, which has pressed both automakers since February to ready themselves for bankruptcy as a means of purging their overwhelming debts.

The GM and Chrysler pension plans together cover 928,000 people, and many of them worry that the industry restructuring already underway could slice their benefits.

A group of nonunion retirees is scheduled to meet with the administration's auto task force this morning to try to save their pensions and health benefits. The United Auto Workers is also negotiating over changes to the benefits, but has yet to reach an agreement with the Treasury Department, a source familiar with the matter said.

"We are going to do what we can to help protect their benefits to the degree that we can," said an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private. "It's premature to speculate on what will happen. This is certainly a constituency that we are focused on, but we have not and cannot rule anything out."

With Chrysler facing an end-of-month federal deadline to reach agreements with its bankers and the union, stakeholders have been trading a flurry of offers and counteroffers.

In recent weeks, members of the task force have struggled to devise rescue plans and a legal strategy that might protect those workers if the companies file for bankruptcy. But experts say an outcome is difficult to predict.

"I feel betrayed," said Vicki Prout, 57, a former executive assistant at Chrysler whose 23-year career there included typing speeches for Lee Iacocca when he was chief executive. "They offered these incentives for us to take early retirement, and I took one. Now it looks like my fixed income wasn't so fixed."

She estimated that her monthly payment would be cut in half if the pension is terminated in a bankruptcy. She has started looking for jobs around her home in Troy, Mich., but said there are not many to find.

"I feel like I've been caught in a storm," she said.

The death spiral continues while the GOP whistles past the graveyard.

Bloomberg:

General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, will cut 10,000 salaried jobs globally and reduce pay for other U.S. white-collar workers by as much as 10 percent to slash costs and keep $13.4 billion in government loans.

About 3,400 of GM’s 29,500 U.S. salaried jobs will be cut by May 1, the company said. The Detroit-based automaker said in a statement it will cut pay temporarily by 10 percent for U.S. executives and by 3 percent to 7 percent for many other U.S. salaried employees. GM is reviewing salaried worker pay and benefits in other countries.

GM needs to accelerate cost-cutting plans after the automaker’s U.S. auto sales fell 49 percent in January. GM and Chrysler LLC must submit progress reports by Feb. 17 on their efforts to restructure their businesses, return to profit and repay $17.4 billion in U.S. loans by the end of 2011.