Democrats Want GM To Restructure, Just Not In Their States

A great deal of analysis has been put in to the Obama administration’s closing of Chrysler dealerships around the country and whether or not at least some of those dealerships were closed based on the political leanings of their owners. Whether or not that’s true (and I think there is some grain of truth in it), Barney Frank openly intervening in GM’s “restructuring” to save a plant in his state is just as bad.

President Obama may have “no interest” in running General Motors, as he averred Monday. But even if that’s true, we are already discovering that he shares Washington with 535 Members of Congress, many of whom have other ideas.
The latest self-appointed car czar is Massachusetts’s own Barney Frank, who intervened this week to save a GM distribution center in Norton, Mass. The warehouse, which employs some 90 people, was slated for closure by the end of the year under GM’s restructuring plan. But Mr. Frank put in a call to GM CEO Fritz Henderson and secured a new lease on life for the facility.
Mr. Frank’s spokesman, Harry Gural, says the Congressman discussed, among other things, “the facility’s value to GM.” We’d have thought that would be something that GM might have considered when it decided to close the Norton center, but then a call from one of the most powerful Members of Congress can certainly cause a ward of the state to reconsider what qualifies as “value.”

So, essentially, General Motors can’t close down a plant that the company has determined is costing them too much money without producing enough benefit because…Rep. Barney Frank says so.
And sure, Barney just asked them nicely to refrain from closing the plant. But what do you think would have happened if GM had refused?
This is what happens when government gets involved in the public sector. Decisions are made not based on good business sense but rather on political considerations. General Motors shouldn’t be a “ward of the state.” Rep. Barney Frank shouldn’t have any say in how GM runs its business. And if GM can’t survive in the business world independent of government bailouts and subsidies, then it shouldn’t exist so that it can be replaced by a company that can.
That’s how things used to work in America. Sadly, Obama has brought change.