The wisdom of President Reagan's words have been lost under an administration that believes government is the entity from which all blessings flow. So has Margaret Thatcher's observation that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Last Oct. 13, President Obama boasted in a weekly address about the bailed-out auto industry that, "We refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt. I bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later that bet is paying off in a big way."
Less than a year later, the American auto industry is indeed surviving, bolstered largely by a Ford that refused government assistance and foreign transplants located in right-to-work states. Even General Motors has been forced to pay the free market some lip service, lest its customers go elsewhere, even as it accepts Chevy Volt subsidies.
Detroit, however, is dead, and unions and government killed it. Michigan recently became a right-to-work state, but it was too late to save a city that had become beholden to unions. As the United Auto Workers helped destroy the auto industry in and around Detroit, it's no accident that Mercedes-Benz decided to build its flagship SUV in a shiny new facility in Vance, Ala.
No comments:
Post a Comment