Bailout Talks Collapse. Will Carmakers be Next?

To almost no one's surprise, the Senate couldn't agree on a compromise plan to provide $14 billion dollars in loans to GM and Chrysler. The Upper House voted 52-35 to bring the measure for a vote, but that was 8 short of the 60 needed to move the bill forward. As was the case in the financial bailout, it was Republicans turning on their own president that doomed this bill. Bush managed a compromise with Senate Democrats, but in the end, the GOP wouldn't go for it.

At issue was the demand by Republicans that the United Auto Workers agree to what's called "parity pay" with non union plants operated by foreign carmakers. The UAW agree, but by no means should the blame for not getting this done be put on them. From the very beginning there were Republican senators who balked at help Detroit because they had foreign car plants in their states. Don't think for a moment those carmakers didn't have lobbyists on Capitol Hill fighting for their interests.

Now the question is, how bad will the fallout from not getting this done be? Even though it's still possible negotiations could get jump started somehow, it's not likely. GM in particular says it doesn't have the cash to operate much longer. Even if you oppose the bailout on principle, the collapse of one or two of the Big Three can't be an appetizing prospect.

It's almost as if members of the current lame duck Congress want to leave as large a mess as possible for the next one to clean up. Of course, the new president will also have that task. On top of all the other bad economic news, bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler could well turn a recession into something no one wants to contemplate.

Could we be using the "D" word sometime in 2009? You tell me.

Still at Work?

With all the unemployed Americans facing tough times, it's just galling to know that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich went back to work yesterday, and shows no sign that he's thinking of quitting. As the details of the case against him come into sharper focus, it's also obvious why he's staying. It's his only leverage against what looks now like a long stretch in prison stripes. Again, the man is innocent until proven guilty, but it's his own words that are damning him.

There is more information about the depth and breadth of both Blagojevich's greed, and the efforts to take him down. We now know that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is the potential senate appointee identified as "Candidate #5" in the criminal complaint. That would be the one whose "associate" allegedly offered a half million dollars for the appointment.

The congressman held a press conference to angrily denounce Blagojevich, and to deny he ever authorized anyone to make that kind of offer on his behalf. If he's lying, he ought to remember that the prosecutor in this case if one Patrick Fitzgerald, who nailed ex-Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby for doing the same thing.

Also exposed yesterday was the identity of "Individual A", a central figure in the complaint. He's lobbyist John Wyma, a close adviser to Blagojevich. He's also apparently the guy who ratted him out, not about the senate seat, but a different shakedown scheme the governor had concocted. It seems there was no government allocation too small, no appointment too big, no matter too trivial for Blagojevich not to attempt to profit from.

And in the end, that's why he was still in his office yesterday. Despite calls to quit from just about every politician in the state of Illinois and President-Elect Obama, Rod Blagojevich remains defiant, and by all accounts unrepentant. Short of calling a special election the Democrats might lose, there seems to be no way to force him to give up the only bargaining chip he still has....that senate appointment.

However, he won't hold that for long. The Illinois political apparatus that Rod Blagojevich was elected to reform will find a way to snatch the appointment right out from under his nose. Either that, or he's actually going to try and bargain with the feds for a lighter sentence in exchange for a quick exit.

If he thinks he can pull that off, he doesn't know Patrick Fitzgerald. What do you think? How long does Rod Blagojevich last?

Arrogance, Idiocy, or Both?

Now that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has made himself the poster boy for political greed, avarice, and just plain stupidity, it may be time to sit back and contemplate just what kind of people we elect to public office in this country. To do that properly, we have to take a look at just what this "reform" governor from Illinois has allegedly done. For sheer gall, it makes NFL miscreants like Plaxico Burress and Pac Man Jones look like mere amateurs.

Perhaps we should preface all this by saying Rod Blagojevich is innocent until proven guilty, as are all Americans accused of crimes. Yet there are some things we do know, based on federal wiretaps of his phone. To take the sports analogy one step further, the governor himself likened the selection of someone to take Barack Obama's place in the US Senate to a sports agent shopping a free agent at the highest price possible. Such was his arrogance, prosecutors say, that he even thought about naming himself to Obama's old job.

Then there are the profanity laden rants that have been released to the public. No need to detail them here, but suffice to say this guy could give the late John Gotti a run for his money for most expletives caught on a wiretap. Even his wife Patrti got into the act, telling her husband to go after the now bankrupt Tribune Company, whose newspaper the Chicago Tribune, has suggested he be impeached. They've no doubt been proven right about that one.

As Illinois politicians try to figure out how to snatch the power to name Obama's successor from the unrepentant Blagojevich, (his lawyer says he won't quit, and as long as he's in office he gets to choose) the question on a lot of minds in Washington is whether or not any of this mess will blow back on the president-elect. The immediate answer might be no, since Blagojevich was taped fuming that the Obama people weren't about any quid pro quo when it came to naming the new senator. Yet Republicans love a scandal that doesn't involve one of their number, so expect them to make the attempt to link Obama to all this.

Maybe the irony in all this aside from providing much fodder for late night tv shows, is that Rod Blagojevich's lawyer says all these charges will come to nothing because it just politics. If he's right, we're all in deep, deep trouble.

What do you think? Will Blagojevich fold and leave the Illinois Governor's office, or will he stick it out and actually try to name Barack Obama's successor? You tell me.

Old Story, New Twist

We've been seeing and hearing about shuttered factories, businesses, and laid off workers with frightening frequency lately. And so the closing of Republic Doors and Windows on Chicago's North Side might have escaped our attention, except for one thing. Workers there decided to occupy the factory. In doing so, they've become national news, even earning praise from Chicago's favorite son, Barack Obama. Their beef is legitimate, their cause is peaceful. They've met with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who took action on their concerns.

The 300 workers were due vacation and severance pay, as are many (but not all ) workers who are losing their livelihoods on the cusp of the holiday season. Trouble is, the company shut down abruptly last Friday because Bank of America canceled Republic's line of credit due to a downturn in the firm's business. That would be the same Bank of America that received billions in taxpayer dollars as part of the great financial bailout of 2008.

The best the bank could come up with is they're not responsible for the company's obligations to their workers. Yet they are responsible to the American people. What exactly did they think the $25 billion dollars they got in the bailout was for, anyway? In the face of this arrogance, Governor Blagojevich has ordered the state to stop doing business with BoA. Score one small one for the workers.

What the employees of Republic Doors and Windows are experiencing is being felt by businesses, big and small, all over America. This factory occupation could well be a template for other workers who find a bunch of high rolling bankers have their foot on their necks. Imagine a taxpayer revolt against banks that take government money yet refuse to use it to keep otherwise profitable businesses alive.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson understands the stakes here. That's why his Rainbow-PUSH Coalition handed out free turkeys and bags of food to the workers inside Republic Windows and Doors. And the empathy shown by our president-elect can't be underestimated either. It's not often we see people taking direct action to protest their circumstances.

Let's hope it spreads, don't you think?