$1 Billion Of GM’s Bailout Going To Investment…In Brazil

Well, at least they’re trying to get away from the UAW.

SAO PAULO — General Motors plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker.
According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to “complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012.”
“It wouldn’t be logical to withdraw the investment from where we’re growing, and our goal is to protect investments in emerging markets,” he said in a statement published by the business daily Gazeta Mercantil.

Before certain members of Congress start in with the outraged press releases and scolding speeches, it’s worth remembering why companies like GM are moving more and more of their operations to places like Brazil. It’s because of the high taxes, big regulations and forced relationships with greedy labor unions foisted on these companies by the very political leaders who get outraged when they start to do business in countries that treat them better.
Of course, that GM is making this investment with our tax dollars is fairly outrageous, but the idea that GM and other companies are getting tax subsidies at all is outrageous. I wouldn’t begrudge them this move if they were doing it with their own capital. But we taxpayers are now paying directly for the consequences of the same sort of big government taxation and regulation that the people who authorized the bailouts supported in the first place.
And that is completely unacceptable.