government motors

I can hardly put together a coherent response to this news:

It is my hope that the steps I am announcing today will go a long way towards answering many of the questions people may have about the future of GM and Chrysler. But just in case there are still nagging doubts, let me say it as plainly as I can — if you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired, just like always. Your warrantee will be safe.

In fact, it will be safer than it’s ever been. Because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warrantee.

The above blockquote was from an excerpt from President Barack Hussein Obama’s Monday remarks about the auto industry’s “restructuring” effort.
This after our glorious President’s administration “asked” the GM CEO, Rick Wagoner, to resign.
To make this situation perfectly clear, we, the American tax payers, will now be backing General Motors warrantees. Our tax money, mismanaged, misappropriated, and misused as it already is, will be diverted to a company that could not keep itself afloat, in order to cover defective products that company produces. You will be paying to fix someone else’s car.
Furthermore, the government is now micromanaging the internal workings of commercial entities. I certainly agree that the GM CEO probably should not keep his job, especially considering that he has pretty effectively run his corporation into the ground. However, I will never agree that it is the government’s job to step in and effectively fire him. What will be the next aspect of business the government will want control over? How else will it seek to squelch free markets?
Make no mistake – even though the Constitution never enumerated this kind of power (as if that has mattered for the past 200 years), even though this move has no legal precedent (or, arguably, standing) here in America, and even though the proponents of this radical decision will make every possible argument to the contrary, the United States government now effectively owns General Motors. Maybe not in name, and it may not receive the profits from the corporation, but making hiring and firing decisions, in addition to “backing” the company’s warrantee, effectively amounts to tacit ownership.
And what is worse is that this will probably be heralded as a good thing…
On the flip side of the equation, unless GM decreases their vehicles’ list prices to compensate for the government picking up their warrantees, you are now paying for that warrantee twice – once by buying the vehicle, once by paying taxes. Additionally, with the great and glorious national government picking up the tab for any warrantee-related repairs, what motivation does the GM management/design team/construction line have to develop and manufature quality vehicles? After all, if it breaks, we, the taxpayers, will be paying for it.
Yeah. This is going to go great.