According to a study last summer by the Heritage Foundation, the $80 billion auto bailout gave the UAW and its members nearly $27 billion due to the fact that GM couldn't shed its outrageously expensive labor contracts, something it could have done in a normal bankruptcy.GM didn't go through a bankruptcy, it went through a Government controlled acquisition.
As such, Obama didn't bail out the auto industry; he bailed out the unions. Without the unions' added costs, taxpayers would have owed nothing.
It's not hard to see how this happened. The UAW and its affiliates give tens of millions of dollars each election cycle, almost entirely to Democrats.
This union influence explains why Obama's auto czars, Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom, arranged a government bankruptcy for GM that flew in the face of hundreds of years of bankruptcy law and violated investor rights.
Bondholders took huge losses, while unions got a big chunk of ownership in GM stock that they weren't legally entitled to.
In a shocking display of favoritism and blatant unfairness, GM's union workers kept their pensions, while nonunion workers at GM spin-off Delphi lost theirs.
And no, GM isn't an aberration.
We've seen this time and again, as corporate cronies of the Obama White House pocket taxpayer "subsidies" and "green investments," then go belly up — whether it's Solyndra in the solar energy business or Fisker in the electric autos.
U.S. taxpayers deserve better.
The GM bailout wasn't a success — it was a dismal failure, costing thousands of jobs and billions of dollars. Next time, normal bankruptcy would be a far better idea.
Typical of this Regime, more corruption.
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