How much do Republicans hate unions, especially powerful ones like the United Auto Workers? Previously, the answer to that question involved some speculation. But thanks to the financial crisis rocking the county, we can now objectively quantify the answer.
Republicans hate unions so much they’d rather let the Big Three automakers go out of business and see thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people forced out of work. And that’s a lot of hate.
Chief among the hatemongers is our own U.S. Sen. John Ensign, who is working harder than he has in a long time (on anything but his golf swing) to destroy any chance American automobile companies can stay in business. And that’s ironic, considering that:
- In 2001, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Ensign backed $15 billion in bailouts for American airline companies hit hard by days of no-fly rules. (Remember that number, readers. It will become significant shortly.)
- Ensign signed an Oct. 2, 2001, letter urging the federal government seeking easier federal loan-guarantee terms for airlines.
- In 2007, Ensign stood up to defend the Big Three automakers when they were threatened with higher gas-mileage standards. “They [Big Three executives] laid out the numbers and the numbers that were in the Commerce [Committee] bill, they said, would destroy the domestic auto industry,” Ensign told the Associated Press at the time. (Presumably, destroying the domestic auto industry with higher fuel economy was a bad thing to Ensign at the time.)
- Experts predict that auto company bankruptcies will cost the government more than the $15 billion auto companies are seeking, since the government will collect less in taxes and pay out more in unemployment.
- Ensign voted for the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, which is 46 times larger than the $15 billion carmakers are seeking.
- Ensign actually encouraged the use of bailout funds for general economic stimulus, although he’s now balking at using that money for carmakers.
Despite his own hypocrisy and the facts, however, Ensign has led the opposition to the auto bailout bill this week. Consider:
- On Dec. 10, Ensign and fellow anti-bailout senators (including, we are compelled to note, whoremonger David Vitter) held a media availability to talk about the auto bailout.
- On Dec. 11, Ensign’s staff sent out a notice that he would speak on the Senate floor that day in opposition to the auto bailout.
- Later on Dec. 11, Ensign voted against ending debate to bring the bailout to a vote.
- Today, after hearing the White House may use some of the $700 billion previously approved by Congress to go ahead with automaker relief, Ensign called on the White House to take that option off the table. “By keeping the [debt relief] funds as a last option, the White House significantly undermined any potential negotiation,” Ensign said in his statement. With [debt relief funds] as a backstop, the concessions that had to be made could not be taken seriously.”
And you know the concessions Ensign was talking about, right? (Hint: It was not just the appointment of a “car czar” to oversee the use of the relief funds.)
The fact is, Ensign and his fellow Republicans hate unions, because unions represent something they fear the most: The aggregation of power in hands that are not rich and, presumably, Republican. It’s the same reason Republicans hate trial lawyers, a free education for everybody, universal health care and even the very notion of public property. All of those things offend the very notion of the “ownership society” and their unique interpretation of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
And now we know just how much they hate unions, don’t we?
UPDATE: He doesn’t explicitly say so in this clip (hat tip to Desert Beacon), but Ensign appears to be making the case that he’d support a bailout for Las Vegas casinos — which manufacture nothing — before he’d support one for Detroit — which manufactures something.
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