Note that "American models" is not the same thing as "Assembled in the United States."The vehicles owned by the Obama administration's auto team could reflect one reason why Detroit's Big Three automakers are in trouble: The list includes few new American cars.
Among the eight members named Friday to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry and the 10 senior policy aides who will assist them in their work, two own American models. Add the Treasury Department's special adviser to the task force and the total jumps to three.
It doesn't matter what the task force drives. What matters is whether the task force recognizes this reality.
If that assessment is correct, the legacy car companies are making about as good a case for more loans as a failing student is for an extra credit opportunity. Bygones are bygones.This is your time to beat Buicks into bullet trains, Suburbans into subways, and Hummers into hybrid buses. To borrow from your speeches, there is a moment in the life of every generation, if you are to make your mark on history, when you must tell an iconic industry that its incompetence is inoperable.
It is time, Mr. President, to take General Motors and Chrysler off taxpayer life support.
Politically, this is even more difficult than ending the Iraq war. In your very first press conference as president-elect, with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm standing behind you with your transition economic team, you declared, "The auto industry is the backbone of American manufacturing . . . a critical part of our attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil."
That was nice to give them the benefit of the doubt, Mr. President, but all GM and Chrysler have done since then is connive for more time on the federal respirator, despite the flat line on the boardroom monitor. They have been on notice for months to come up with a revolutionary restructuring plan in exchange for the $17.4 billion in bailout aid it has already received.
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