My uncle worked for GM before he died. He had a high school education and his job required no education. My mother worked for years to put herself through nursing school at the same time, after which she made less than half what he did. She wondered why she bothered sometimes when she saw how much he was making. She worked at a hospital, and she has great health insurance, but his beat anything you’ve ever seen. No copays, ever, no premiums, ever, no payments for your health, ever.

When he died, his 16-year-old daughter would have gotten his full salary until she was 25, if she hadn’t gotten married. Honestly, that’s madness. A few years would be a very nice gift, but 10 years of a full salary still paid for a dead worker (and paid to a teenager who inevitably wasted it on vacations and cars and luxury apartments)? Dead police officers’ families and military families don’t get that kind of bonus. My boyfriend’s grandfather was the CEO of a company, and I don’t think his family would have gotten that kind of death benefit if he’d died then. He had to buy his own life insurance like anyone else.

The auto unions just took too much, which is not the only cause of, but a contributing factor, to their companies failing.

shannon: i have a simpler explanation: they’re republicans. unions are a democratic support structure. therefore they attack them.

giving them principles and an ideological framework beyond “fuck everyone who isn’t us” is like giving democrats a framework beyond “fuck everyone who isn’t us.” it is foolish.

kent: “buy american”? can someone stop this fucking loop of “gung ho!” already? the movie was not that funny to begin with, and the remake is thus far horrendous.

Aside from Julian’s correct observation about the meaning of question begging, I have a question in response to you: WHOSE morals? Yours? Mine? Julian’s? Barack Obama’s? An Alabama auto worker’s?

Republican Senators know this.

Republican Senators also know it is also why 61% of poll respondents oppose the taxpayer subsidy of a failing industry and its labor union.

Liberals may find psychological relief in fantasizing Republican opposition is nothing more than a reflexive paternal authoritarian reaction to a Democrat special interest, but that would be another misjudgment.

The proposed bailout does nothing to foster long-term economic viability for the American auto industry. Only first class morons and elected Democrats thinks Congress can successfully re-engineer the American auto industry. The bailout instead retards the changes necessary for long-term viability, increases the chances for failure, and sends taxpayers the bill. This is why we have bankruptcy laws in the US.

If you want a sustainable domestic auto industry, that’s the direction in which to go.

What other companies are to be bailed out next? Where will the money come from other than the taxpayers. It is extremely difficult to give a tax cut as promised while pouring billions into companies that have failed to produce a product that people want and will purchase. Are we going to bail out Mircosoft when their sales go down?

Are we going to bail out Joe the Plumber, Joe the Carpenter, Joe the tax accountant, Joe the insurance salesman? Just where does the Bail Out End?

Even people who consider themsleves liberal Democrats!

The liberal Democrats seem vastly more prone to thinking in these terms than anybody else in the country.

And what is the argument that the GOP should funnel money to what you claim is a Democeatic constituency? Can I expect that the Dems will start to provide a few billion for the Heritage Foundation?

The moonbats are out in force with yet another crazy conspiracy theory.