Ottawa to deliver $3.5B auto aid package: CTV
The biggest bailout in Canadian history, I’m guessing, and rest assured this is only the beginning. The money the Bush administration is putting up is strictly designed to tide them over until January, ie to drop the whole thing in the Democrats’ lap. So when Big Auto comes back for more — $75-billion, $125-billion, nobody has any idea — the whole exercise will be repeated, only with a lot fewer Republicans to hold them back.
So: if Big Auto cannot be allowed to fail now, when the taxpayer’s only in for a paltry $25-billion, how likely is it that it will be allowed to fail in future? Which politician is going to be brave enough to walk away from a $100-billion “investment”? And at every step of the way, whichever government is in power in Canada will face the same irresistible pressure to pony up a similar (or, as in this case, disproportionately large) contribution, with the same bogus arguments. And it will. Who wants to be the one left holding the bag when the industry goes down?