Posted by
Always To The Right on Monday, December 08, 2008 11:01:48 AM
Senator Chris Dodd wants the head of GM as a bounty for approving the auto bailout on Capitol Hill. Dodd told Face the Nation
that Rick Wagoner had to leave as a condition of getting billions in
taxpayer funds to keep the automaker in business. That’s rich, coming
from the man who got his own personal bailout from the nation’s most
notorious subprime lender
If GM wants to accept government money, then the old adage applies:
he who pays the piper calls the tune. The government demands for
limits on executive pay, an end to divident payments, and preference
for taxpayer equity in the company can all be avoided by turning down
the big, fat check — one that the government has no business offering
in the first place. No one can argue that the CEOs of automakers have a
right to hang onto their jobs after bringing the companies to the brink
of collapse while tooling around the nation in a luxury fleet of
private jets.
What makes this objectionable is not so much the message but the messenger. Dodd took sweetheart deals
from Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo on loans that saved him tens of
thousands of dollars, while Dodd chaired the Senate’s oversight of the
industry. Despite promising to open his records, Dodd still has not
released the documentation for his Friends of Angelo mortgages, to
which even the New York Times editorial board objected six weeks ago.
Dodd has abused his position to enrich himself at the expense of the public trust. He is the last
person in the Senate who should issue sanctimonious demands for
accountability. Thanks to his participation in protecting Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac from accountability, Dodd’s also the last person who
should be shoveling out billions in taxpayer money to prop up private
firms hit by the financial crisis he himself caused in large part,
along with Barney Frank and the rest of Congress.
When Dodd resigns and releases his records, then we can worry about who runs GM.