… But He Doesn’t Like Big Government

“Let me be clear: the United States government has no interest or intention of running GM. What we are interested in is giving GM an opportunity to finally make those much-needed changes that will let them emerge from this crisis a stronger and more competitive company.”

These words are from President Obama’s address about his plans for the auto industry.  We don’t want to run the auto companies… aside from maybe making some staffing decisions, exercising veto power over restructuring plans, providing “guidance” in developing such plans, and being directly involved in negotiations with potential partners. That’s all. Oh, and we’ll back the warranties. But that’s it. Oh yeah, and we’ll fund operations for a while.

This tendency of Obama’s to do one thing and then say the total opposite brings to mind an old Eddie Murphy bit, in which a woman catches her man coming out of another woman’s house, confronts him about it, and he just says, “Wasn’t me.” She keeps after him, but he just keeps saying, “Wasn’t me,” until she comes around: “Well, maybe it wasn’t you.”

But more than the sheer audacity of his double-speak, the real problem is with what Obama’s administration is actually trying to do here.  They are doing nothing short of attempting to take over for the free market and the existing legal system.  The US auto companies are “too big to fail,” so, we can’t let them go bankrupt, so, we’ll loan them money to give them a chance to fix themselves.  But then we’re going to treat them pretty much the same as if they had declared bankruptcy –  force everyone involved to renegotiate contracts, force them to come up with a recovery plan that meets an outside party’s criteria, involving selling off parts of the companies, and consolidating (eliminating) brands — but with the administration running the show, instead of a court.  In the case of Chrysler, at least, the government will even mandate what kinds of cars the company can produce!

What the hell is going on, here!?

This country was conceived around the idea of freedom.  Freedom meant that no authority could tell you how to live, force you to follow a particular religion, keep you from seeking to rise up from the “class” into which you were born.  There were to be no noble lords, here.  Anyone, through hard work, dedication, and luck, would be free to succeed.  That freedom includes — necessarily! — the freedom to fail.  Our history is littered with failures, big and small.  But it is also littered with successes, most of which have come out of the failures.  And, on balance, the successes have vastly outweighed the failures — which is why ours has been the most successful country in human history.

Does the President of the United States not know this?  Can he really believe that bankruptcy at GM and/or Chrysler would mean the “disappearance” of the auto industry from the US?  That entrepreneurs would not find opportunities in the ashes of the old, burnt out, auto companies?  Does he really believe that government agencies and politicians can force businesses to be successful?  (It is pretty obvious that he does.)  Just think about the audacity involved here.  What his actions are saying is that he, with the experience of his 47 years of life, never running any business, can manage not one company to success, but entire industries!  He knows better.  He knows who can do the best job.  He can identify the best course.  It is absolutely insane!

I’ve said this before:  Either you believe in free-market capitalism, or you do not.  So, when the president says he doesn’t “like big government, ” and when he says he doesn’t want government running the auto companies, and when he says that he’s not interested in nationalizing the banks, but then he turns around and explodes the size of government, and tells the auto companies and banks how they’re going to run their business, the truth is pretty obvious.  It doesn’t matter what he says about these measures being temporary –  he simply does not trust free-market capitalism.  Period.  And that means that he doesn’t really trust freedom, because the two are inextricably intertwined.

When Obama was elected, I was more worried about congress running right over him, with spending on all kinds of big-government projects, than I was about him.  Though he had promised everything to everyone, in his nomination acceptance speech, I still thought that maybe he really could be something different — that maybe he would try to exercise some restraint in his application of government power.  But in just a couple of months, he has shattered any illusions I had about him.  He is a man who absolutely believes that the government — better than the mass of the free people, better than the free market — can solve all of our problems.  He truly believes in a very different America than the one in which I believe.