Let’s look at questions 2 and 3 –

  • When did it become fashionable to make too much money, to work too hard and do really well for your family?
  • When did it become good business sense for the country to own two of the three American auto manufacturers?

How about a history lesson? In the 1960s the top marginal was 91%. Now, it is 35% for federal income tax. Yet, conservatives whine and whine about how they are paying too much. Under President Clinton the rich did pretty well. I don’t remember hearing about rich people deciding not to work because they didn’t want to pay the 39% income tax. Do you? So now that we have given billions of dollars to the rich without paying for the tax cuts, we are asking for them to pay a little more. That’s the crime? Give me a break. Back to history, remember Teddy Roosevelt? He said, “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.” This is clearly a dig at the railroad monopolies. He also said, “This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country.” This is a big swipe at the rich. So, any student of history should be able to give the author a nice list of patriotic Americans who didn’t stand up for greed.

The second question is once again a clever way of dancing around the problem and trying to get an emotional response. Obama didn’t wake up one morning and look in the Wall Street Journal and ask himself, “What industry should I take over?” How about a million more Americans out of work? How about the employment rate in the 13 – 15% range? Obama thought that would be bad. He thought that GM and Chrysler should be saved, saving millions of jobs along with them.

Update: So, how has this experiment in progressive government worked out? The liberal rag, the

  • Wall Street Journal

    • (may need a subscription to open), called the plan Capitalism at work. A plan to buy a failing company, restructure then re-sell the company. I wonder if capitalists have ever done this. Hmm, only about a thousand times in the ’80s and ’90s when that was a very popular Wall Street strategy. GM has repaid over $8 billion and has filed to go public. They are making a profit. Chrysler has announced that they are planning their first in a series of IPOs in late 2011.

    So, the government has propped up two large American companies and plans to slowly decrease its stake in both companies over the next few years as they become more profitable. What’s the issue with saving American jobs that conservatives hate so much?