Posted on 11/14/2008 1:07:12 PM PST by sickoflibs
Democrats in the Senate are scrambling to draft an auto industry relief bill that can win over skeptical Republicans when the measure comes up for a vote next week.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and supporters of the bill, which would extend $25 billion in emergency loans to the auto industry, are trying to round up the votes needed to break an expected filibuster. Reid plans to begin debate Monday and set up a test vote on Wednesday.
But Democrats will have to do a lot of arm-twisting before then. Supporters expect to need between 12 and 15 GOP votes to attach the measure to a $6 billion bill the House passed in October that would extend jobless benefits. So far, they have only one firm commitment, from Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, a state with several auto plants and auto-supply manufacturers.
In a letter Friday to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Reid urged Republicans to reconsider their opposition.
"In my view, the adoption of a robust recovery package should be the top priority of the upcoming lame duck session," Reid wrote. "That is why I intend to seek consent on a bill to create jobs, prevent large tax increases and cuts in state services, strengthen our nation’s manufacturing sector, and assist those struggling to find a job."
Democrats could include items like extra stimulus measures and low-income heating assistance.
Jim Manley, Reid's spokesman, noted Thursday night that nothing can be done without the agreement of Senate Republicans.
Some Senate Republicans are skeptical the aid under the auto proposal would lead to changes by the companies that could make them viable in the long run. But several states with Republican senators have Big Three auto factories.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Nope.
You're on the wrong forum. Progressivesocialists.com is right down the 'net on your left.
L
It is time the unions had a public audit. I want to know about EVERY check they cut. I also want to know why they cannot support their members with full pay.
The idea that they are "blaming" ICE is your idea, not what the Border Patrol says. I got my information from Congressman Brian Bilbray's office. It's just common sense really. The war in Iraq was going badly until we put more boots on the ground. You said I was "living in the past," but 20 million, or more, additional illegal aliens, not to mention bigger problems with gangs, logically would require more agents and support people, unless your goal is not to enforce the law. Common sense, not spending money for the sake of making the govt. bigger.
In fact, I think the money would be well spent, although one has to watch for corruption at all levels. Do you realize that we actually have US citizens who want to work in plumbing and construction, and illegal immigration hurts them? Do you want your identity stolen?
>>I do not have the answer, and neither do you.<<
I agree, but I don't think we have given some of what you call the "old" ideas a chance. I am not advocating another "Operation Wetback," but I do think cutting the money would help greatly. I think that new ideas are great, provided that well-meaning but foolish people, or in fact our enemies, do not put a poison pill in the scheme. Here is another poster's thought, that you deemed to be new and a good idea:
build the wall and create a legalized status contingent upon the wall being completed.
That's last year's shamnesty bill. It's not new and it was unfair and a cynically dishonest, horrible idea. Promise enforcement and then yank the football when Charlie Brown tries to kick it, by not funding it or having a pro-amnesty administration find excuses not to do it. The same old swindle.
I'm not saying that you are against border enforcement, but these people with a gift for deceit who write bills that link amnesty with border enforcement have no interest whatsoever in enforcement.
If that's what you want, the Dems and Obama are going to do their damndest to give it to you.
Border Patrol saying they need more ICE agents to do there job of enforcing the border is the same as blaming. That is actually really stupid. Border Patrol is responsible for preventing border crossing. Hard concept to swallow obviously.
The war in Iraq was going badly until we put more boots on the ground.
Wrong. The war in Iraq was going badly until we put General Petraeus on the ground. We could have put more boots on the ground under Abizaid and it would have been a disaster.
More boots on the ground does not automatically spell victory. You need a plan to utilize them. Our plan was to secure the population, provide security, reconcile with some, and kill the others.
Reconciling with some is almost like a mini amnesty. If you want to go down that road ... I really don't ...
Anyway, securing the population, that means securing borders to prevent other insurgents coming into the country.
In your example, the borders still had to be secured.
You said I was "living in the past," but 20 million, or more, additional illegal aliens, not to mention bigger problems with gangs, logically would require more agents and support people, unless your goal is not to enforce the law.
This is not 1986. Times have changed. Something 22 years ago does not reflect reality today. In 1986, half of our hard labor workforce was not illegals. Today it is. Different realities.
Do you want your identity stolen?
All illegals still identities. Good one. In reality, besides just the border crossings, lots of illegals come in on fake passports or ID's of American citizens.(Ricans)
Do you realize that we actually have US citizens who want to work in plumbing and construction, and illegal immigration hurts them?
I want to work in plumbing and construction, and yes illegal immigration does hurt that. Employers hire illegals due to them working just as hard for less money. From a business stand point, that makes sense. From my stand point, that is total crap, and I have not been able to find a good company to work for, for that reason.
I also agree employers need to be held responsible. More ICE agents will NOT CUT BACK ON ILLEGALS CROSSING THE BORDER. They may cut back on employers hiring illegals, but that is not going to fix the immigrant problem. What about all the under the table work?
We pulled out of Saudi Arabia several years ago. That was the reason Al-Qaeda started their crusade against us. It is ongoing still. What is the reason now?
I do not feel cracking down on employers alone is going to fix the problem. There is still 50 other reasons to come to America (legally or illegally) than just working.
Factories hire illegals for cheap labor. Unions demand employers pay an arm and a leg. Business goes overseas for cheap labor. Makes sense from a business stand point. It's crap from my standpoint.
On the other hand, like I pointed out earlier, no American wants to pick apples all day long. I refuse to. And the younger generation refuses to. Lets deport all illegals, and then who is going to pick the apples? If you want to, go right ahead. Lets start with that plan tomorrow.
We need to document who is here, and figure out what to do with them. Is that saying Amnesty, no. Is that saying Deport them, no.
I'm sure there is a compromise solution. I do not have it, but I'm sure it is there.
think that new ideas are great, provided that well-meaning but foolish people, or in fact our enemies, do not put a poison pill in the scheme.
They can only do it to the old idea's? Any idea risks having that happen. No more ideas!!! Lets have no ideas for if we did have one, someone could poison it.
I'm not saying that you are against border enforcement, but these people with a gift for deceit who write bills that link amnesty with border enforcement have no interest whatsoever in enforcement.
First off, I'm all for border enforcement. That has been my approach from the get go. Our borders being secured needs to be the first step. That is not open for debate. We do not need to come up with an elaborate plan before we act. Securing the border is a first step and would have an immediate impact on the problem.
really.
Mark,
Why not just offer all of the companies big freakin’ tax breaks?
I know the answer, but it reveals so much.
sorry,
wrong thread!
Buying an inferior car is bad for the country, period.
Make a car that is comparable in price and quality and then I'll buy an American brand, but I won't subsidize inferior products because someone tells me I ought to. Tell you what, send me money to make up the cost I would spend by buying an inferior product and I'll do it. If you're not prepared to do that, why are asking me to essentially do the same thing with my money?
I did not say "They need more ICE agents to do there [sic] job of enforcing the border." The BP guards the border and ICE generally works elsewhere. You certainly have a fertile imagination on this point.
>>Wrong. The war in Iraq was going badly until we put General Petraeus on the ground. We could have put more boots on the ground under Abizaid and it would have been a disaster.<<
Having enough people to do the job is necessary, but not sufficient. You are right that Petraeus is a brilliant commander, and others would have failed in his place, but if you respect him as I do, you should take his judgments about troop levels seriously. If Petraeus were in charge of ICE, do you really believe he would be satisfied with being outnumbered 10,000 to 1?
>>This is not 1986. Times have changed. Something 22 years ago does not reflect reality today.<<
You are right about that. It is much, much worse now, and the political consequences of adding tens of millions of Dem (or worse) voters via amnesty would be at least ten times worse than 22 years ago.
>>I also agree employers need to be held responsible. More ICE agents will NOT CUT BACK ON ILLEGALS CROSSING THE BORDER.<<
Yes they will, just as stopping them at the border will help ICE. When the jobs dry up, the workers are not stupid enough to live there with no money unless we allow illegals to collect a lot of welfare, and that should be a lot easier to stop than illegal employment.
>>What about all the under the table work?<<
No single initiative would be 100% effective, and some off-the-books work would continue. If you stop the on-the books, and investigate problems with social security numbers, that should make the remaining illegals easier to keep track of, and slow the flow at the border. Conversely, any successful reduction of illegal entries at the border will make it more possible for ICE to get control of the ones already inside.
>>On the other hand, like I pointed out earlier, no American wants to pick apples all day long. I refuse to. And the younger generation refuses to. Lets deport all illegals, and then who is going to pick the apples?<<
Realistically, not many US citizens want to do that kind of work. So I'm OK with carefully thought out guest worker programs, but such programs (not necessarily well thought out) already exist. The problems: Anchor babies (no solution to that unless the SCOTUS reverses itself), no way to track if a visa holder leaves with them (we could fix that if congress and a POTUS wanted to), and employers who lie.
>>We need to document who is here, and figure out what to do with them. Is that saying Amnesty, no. Is that saying Deport them, no.<<
Well, good, we agree. On another post you said you thought another poster's amnesty proposal was "a good idea" though.
I doubt Republicans will stand in the way, which is why I bought some Ford stock this morning.
truer words were never spoken.
this whole bailout craze is a sellout of conservative ideals. It probably cost mccain the election... who’s next?
Lee Iacocca, in the early 90’s talked about Chrysler quality vs Toyota. He said 10% were as good as any toyota, 80% were ok and 10% were the lemons that caused all the problems.
With a new car buying cycle of 5 years, how long does it take until more than 50% of the population has had one of the lemons and won’t buy from Detroit in the future?
(Answer 35 years)
Detroit has never solved the quality problems on their worst cars and that is why not enough people will buy them and why they are going out of business.
I could not get on Free Republic today-work and the site was down. I watched some of the hearings on CSPAN. I was very depressed. Also, I saw Gingrey (on one of the cable networks) who used to be my congressman in Georgia come right out and say, the union contributes to Democrats thus the auto industry must file bankruptcy. I have seen posters on these threads say similar things. I have never seen such spite. It is very disheartening to see a party I have voted for my entire adult life willing to lose 3 million jobs or so during a recession in order to pay back a union and a region (Mid West) for an election loss. such behavior is not good for the country and certainly not good for the GOP in terms of electability.
I have posted quite a bit in the last few days about trade and jobs. In years gone by, there were 50% of posters who cared about American jobs and wanted fair trade on these sort of threads. There were only a couple of freepers other than me defending these issues in recent posts. The others are gone. I’m not surprised the GOP lost the recent elections. I think they will lose more in the future. They have had their reveng-stopped the bail out. I only hope the Auto industry can hang in there. I believe the big three make great products and are very important to the US economy. The Republicans will be blamed if the American auto industry goes under and the economy takes a big hit which it will.
They will not be competitive in presidential elections for some time if ever. Today, I realized I am not nor ever will be a Republican again. I am a conservative and will vote third party in the future. My party turned its back on my and the entire Mid West. The GOP is dead to me.
I appreciate the longer post. Part of the elected Republican opposition is regional. They only have transplants in their states. It’s looking out for your state, but it’s still ugly.
I am more of a protectionist than most on this board, and I try to put my money where my mouth is in terms of buy North American. I would be willing to support the bailout, trade protectionism, whatever if I thought it would work.
I still buy north american for most products, but not with autos until I see a truly reformed Detroit wrt quality and customer support (ie parts supply).
I believe that GM’s problems started in the late 1960’s when they reduced the quality of the cars and reduced the warranties to avoid price increases (because they didn’t want to be blamed for “causing inflation”. It wasn’t even their fault, govt causes inflation but GM was too weak to call the politicians on it.)
It was the easy way out, and they had 50% market share and were also worried about anti-trust if they got too big.
GM took the easy way out at every turn. Caved into the UAW every time for short term labour peace. More quality and content cuts to compensate for 1970’s emissions mandates, rather than price increases.
GM rushed products into production too soon for PR reasons, before the engineering was done. Concepts like the vega aluminum engine, cadillac V4-6-8, olds diesel, ht4100 V8, quad 4, galvanized bodies on GM10, were successfully put into production by other manufacturers. But GM rushed them for non-engineering reasons, they failed, and became part of the bad quality of Detroit story.
Detroit became uncompetitive in cars (esp small cars) and totally dependent on trucks/suvs for profits. That business model was the easy way out, again. It worked only when the economy was booming and gas prices were low.
The last oil price shock was the 4th since 1970. Detroit was less ready for it than they were for the first one.
In my book, if GM and Detroit have any way hope of revival they have to stop taking the easy way out, and fundamentally fix their problems. In this case, to me, the easy way out is a government bailout. The hard way, but the right way is ch11.
Now ch11 may not work. I understand the arguments about people won’t buy from a bankrupt company... But ch11 is the only way they can kill the brands, dealers, legacy costs and UAW that GM needs to do for a turnaround.
They will either get their loans in late 08’ or Jan 08.
Either way they will get their loans. FACT
No we did not know because you are unable to provide proof of your claim. Apparently and supposedly are hearsay.
Chapter 11 will not work, but I appreciate your thoughtful response. Keep buying a American wherever you can. As someone said recently, “buy American or bye bye America”.
The word in GM is that they will not survive and will be forced into bankruptcy (death) before Obama is sworn in.
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