UAW Protest of Romney

Alex Leary reports that the United Auto Workers will protest Mitt Romney's appearance at the Daytona 500 tomorrow.

UAW will taunt Romney from the sky while he attends Daytona 500 on Sunday. Plane banner: "Mitt Romney: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

Romney may now lose his home state of Michigan for being against the auto bailouts. The Republican talking point that the auto bailout was bad will likely cost Republicans Michigan. An NBC/Marist poll has President Obama leading all Republican candidates by wide margins. Presidents Reagan and Bush I won Michigan. The current Republican Party is so far to the Right that they have no interest in appealing to working class voters.

The Obama campaign feels that the GOP candidates have handed them political gold. Team Obama is running this ad in Michigan.



I had my own skepticism about the auto bailout. I wanted to see auto jobs saved, but felt that the major American auto companies were too flawed to turn their businesses around. The Obama's administration's restructing of the industry got rid of dead weight, such as General Motor's CEO Richard Wagoner. The end result is that 1.45 million jobs were saved. That is 1.45 million good reasons for the UAW to protest Romney.

It's A Shame About GM

A sign that the auto industry crisis has taken a turn for the worst. Evan Dando is suing General Motors.

TARP Money Being Repayed

Derek Thompson is correct. President Obama should get credit for the TARP gamble.

Half a year ago, our financial system was in catastrophe, and the debate was over how much money it would take to bail them out, or even take them over. Today, the biggest banks are -- or at least appear to be -- on stable footing, and the debate is over how much TARP money they will be allowed to give back. To be clear, this is a statement of confidence from the banks, not evidence that they will be OK in four or six months. But it is still a remarkable turn of events, one we can credit to the Obama administration's overall strategy of ... what again?

The New York Times reports Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, American Express, Bank of New York Mellon, the BB&T Corporation, Capital One Financial, State Street Corporation and US Bancorp will start repaying TARP funds. Obama said the taxpayer "actually turned a profit."

“I also want to say: the return of these funds does not provide forgiveness for past excesses or permission for future misdeeds,” Mr. Obama said. “It is critical that as our country emerges from this period of crisis, that we learn its lessons; that those who seek reward do not take reckless risk; that short-term gains are not pursued without regard for long-term consequences.”

The conservative stimulus plan: Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt are calling on Americans to boycott General Motors. Limbaugh's and Hewitt's plan is to bankrupt an American company, put American workers out of jobs and have the taxpayers lose money for attempting to bail GM out. Limbaugh and Hewitt showed they don't care about fiscal discipline kick-starting the economy. They just want to see Obama fail.

Bush Dumped GM Problem On Obama

Dick Cheney parses his words carefully. What is clear was the Bush admistration knew General Motors was in financial trouble. Rather than act, President George W. Bush decided to have the Obama team deal with GM.

“These are big issues and [Bush] wouldn't be there through the process of managing it, but in effect, would have sort of pulled the plug on GM,” Cheney said, adding that he and Bush wanted to allow Obama’s team to “decide what they wanted to do.”

The Decider decided he wanted to punt. A true profile in courage.