U.S. government is ruining industry

Have you heard the latest joke? Congress wants the big three auto companies to give them assurances as to how the $25 billion bailout will be spent, what changes will be made, what jobs will go, will the CEO's resign, will they sell the corporate planes that are used to fly congressmen around? All this they say because they want to protect the taxpayers.

Protect the taxpayers? The $700 billion for the bailout, $85 billion for AIG, $100 billion each for Fannie and Freddie, as much as $1.3 trillion for the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, $540 billion for the money market mutual funds, and finally the $25 billion for the auto companies. All told $2.8 trillion.

What assurances did Congress call for to protect the taxpayer? Many people write about how bad the big three are. They have been unionized for many, many years, they are paying health insurance for employees, they pay health insurance and retirement for retirees, they pay vacation and for line changeovers, they paid enough so that many employees could send their children to college, and people write how bad they are.

The government allows foreign cars to be imported, but we cannot export to those countries. If we can, they put a tariff on our cars, and our government calls that free trade.

Foreign car companies can come here and build a plant, I believe there are 22 at present. They do not allow unions, therefore, a lot less benefits and no job guarantee. What retirement? What health care for retirees? They have a policy not to hire anyone that works within 300 miles of a union company (What if GM or Ford had that policy, what groups would be screaming, the ACLU would be up in arms.)

Ford has a car that gets 60 miles per gallon on diesel that is sold in Europe, but the environmentalists in America will not let it be imported because they don't like diesel. Find out what your government is doing to ruin this country before you condemn American industry.

Robert Chmela

Elgin