Pull the plug on U.S. automakers

BY DERRICK Z. JACKSON

President Obama, this is your moment. This is your time to beat Buicks into bullet trains, Suburbans into subways, and Hummers into hybrid buses. To borrow from your speeches, there is a moment in the life of every generation, if you are to make your mark on history, when you must tell an iconic industry that its incompetence is inoperable.

It is time, Mr. President, to take General Motors and Chrysler off taxpayer life support.

Politically, this is even more difficult than ending the Iraq war. In your very first press conference as president-elect, with Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm standing behind you with your transition economic team, you declared, "The auto industry is the backbone of American manufacturing ... a critical part of our attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil." .

That was nice to give them the benefit of the doubt, Mr. President, but all GM and Chrysler have done since then is connive for more time on the federal respirator, despite the flat line on the boardroom monitor. They have been on notice for months to come up with a revolutionary restructuring plan in exchange for the $17.4 billion in bailout aid it has already received. Last week, GM said it may need another $16.6 billion from the United States and another $6 billion from the governments of Canada, Germany, Britain, Sweden, and Thailand. Chrysler says it needs another $5 billion from you and me. For that, it came up with a projected loss of another 50,000 jobs, with plans so vague that the Wall Street Journal wrote that it contained "only a relatively few major new restructuring steps."

That is not even the final straw for pulling the plug. Within the restructuring plan submitted this week to the Treasury Department, GM wants an additional $8.4 billion from the Department of Energy to produce "alternative fuel and advanced propulsion" vehicles, with yet another request coming by March 31. This is a stunningly unjustifiable level of welfare for a company that arrogantly peered out of its SUVs and pickups, sneering down on the smaller Japanese cars.

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