Oh Republicans...

It appears the Republican caucus in the Senate is willing to kill the American auto industry and with it, some three million jobs in the most economically depressed region of a nation mired in recession, over their hatred of unions. That's right, the Republican party, the same folks who brought you wonderful "free market" policies like the Medicare Modernization Act, or the "Medicare Middleman Multiplication Act" as Paul Krugman calls it, an explosion in no bid contracts for their cronies, and much more, plan to use the force of the federal government not to salvage the auto industry, but to destroy the UAW, or at least its wages and benefits. According to the Detroit Free Press (linked above), Bob Corker (R-TN)

has said automakers and the UAW need to commit to steep cuts in return for aid, namely immediately cutting UAW wages to those at foreign automakers’ plants in the United States and accepting half of the money for the retiree health care trust fund in stock.

Interesting how he claims the industry and the workers need to accept cuts but the actual cuts only apply to the workers. If such cuts aren't written into law, they're threatening to Filibuster the rescue bill that even the Bush administration recognizes is necessary.

Are these people serious? Force workers to accept wage and benefit cuts and restructure (aka downsize)the industry while we're in the midst of a recession? Had these people possibly considered attaching EFCA to the bill to allow unions to organize in the southern, foreign-owned plants and improve their wages? Or pass universal health care to equalize health care costs across the industry? I just can't understand why Congress would possibly legislate wage cuts for people making, not millions of dollars, but just $57,000 a year. Is that really too much to ask? How bout mandating that no one gets paid more than $150k a year at these companies? Or how bout using some of the under-utilized GM, Ford, and Chrysler factories to build things like wind mills or solar panels that we actually need, as suggested by the Auto Workers' Caravan, rather than legislating layoffs and wage and benefit cuts? Nope, none of these ideas enter into the heads of these folks. They only have one overriding belief that guides their policy: legislation must enrich the already rich and further impoverish the working men and women of this nation.

There's much to malign about the Democrats, but times like these make me wish we already had 58-59 dems in the Senate. They may not be great, but at least they're less enamored with inequality. Here's to hoping Republican intransigence doesn't kill the Mid West.