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Beckmann: Members of Congress, not auto execs, deserve grilling
There was one major problem with this week's congressional hearings about the bid by Detroit's automakers for a government loan to stay in business -- the wrong people were under the gun.
...This week, auto execs Rick Wagoner of General Motors, Alan Mulally of Ford and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler, along with United Auto Workers boss Ron Gettelfinger, were grilled by the ultimate second guessers, the politicians, most of whom don't have education degrees in economic fields or experience in making decisions on private employment, inventory and global competition.
One wishes the four could have asked the questions instead this week.
Why did members of Congress -- such as House Banking Chairman Barney Frank, Senate Banking Chairman Christoper Dodd and others -- raise fuel economy standards, adding more than $85 billion in costs as the industry was restructuring itself?
If the reason was forcing automakers to deal with higher gasoline prices, perhaps the politicians could explain why they have made fuel more scarce by blocking domestic drilling for oil and preventing new refineries from being built during the past three decades.
If global warming was the reason, perhaps the politicians could explain why some scientists now point to cooling temperatures while carbon dioxide levels continue to rise.
Our politicians like to claim the automakers have been slow to react to changing consumer demand. Perhaps they'd care to explain U.S. Energy Department figures that show flex-fuel vehicles, many made by the Detroit Three, accounted for a mere 6 percent of sales in 2007, while hybrid vehicle sales accounted for 2.6 percent of the market.
Politicians who insist on claiming that foreign manufacturers emphasize "green" technology over muscle might explain why sales last year of Toyota Tacoma and Tundra trucks were 30 percent higher than its hybrid vehicle sales.
Next, the execs and Gettelfinger could begin querying lawmakers about the credit crisis, born of government decisions that forced tens of billions of dollars in loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to borrowers who were unqualified and high credit risks. This, in turn, has led to the reduced availability of credit for potential car buyers and helped send auto sales plunging.
We wouldn't expect the lawmakers to apologize for their lengthy list of mistakes. We wouldn't expect them to admit their role in creating the trouble. They never do.
But we should expect lawmakers to agree to these loans for the carmakers. After all, the credit record of GM, Ford and Chrysler is markedly better than that of Congress.
It's not just Detroit, yes from a Detroit rag, doesn't make it less true:
Beckmann: Members of Congress, not auto execs, deserve grilling | The Detroit News | detnews.com
