Aaron Robinson: Rejoice, ‘Tax Dollars at Work’ Actually Worked; Or, How the Bailouts Were a Bargain

Those of you still grumping into 2014 on the belief that the government should never have bailed out GM and Chrysler probably weren't terribly swayed by the video images of the vice president striding through the Detroit auto show in January with grateful car-company execs nipping at his heels. The man with the tawny skin and silver mane gave good photo ops, climbing up the side of the new F-150 and wedging himself behind the wheel of the Z06 with new GM CEO Mary Barra at his side. In a speech, he linked the government's profligate doling from the public larder in 2009—$51 billion to GM alone—to the supposed resurgence of domestic manufacturing, saying, "We bet on American ingenuity, we bet on you, and we won." Not mentioned in this de Gaulle-returns-to-Paris moment was its final price tag, paid by us all, of $10.5 billion. Those of you repelled by Biden's crass triumphalism in a city where, just a few blocks away, the broken windows vastly outnumber the few taxpayers who vastly outnumber the remaining auto workers can be forgiven for switching channels at that moment. The political vaudeville at Cobo Center perhaps only cemented your certainty that GM and Chrysler should have been left alone to swirl down capitalism's commode, and I won't argue with that. READ MORE ››

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