We and GOP owe Bush thanks

We and GOP owe Bush thanks

There are those who will accuse President George W. Bush of overreaching by tapping Troubled Assets Relief Program money to provide bridge loans to the American auto industry.

Let them carp. President Bush accomplished several things Friday when he extended a $17 billion lifeline to Detroit’s Big three.

UHe gave the companies an opportunity to weather today’s turbulent financial waters.

UHe established a level of accountability for the use of bailout money that should not only apply to the auto industry, but to every company that gets federal help.

UHe saved the Republican Party from the short-sighted stupidity of a band of senators, primarily from the South and West, who were willing to sacrifice the domestic auto industry out of either a sense of free-market purity or out of self-interest. The first group can be forgiven; not so those senators who put the interests of Japanese, Korean and German automakers who have plants in their states above U.S. interests.

Had General Motors gone bankrupt on Presi–dent Bush’s watch after a Republican minority filibustered the bailout bill, the Republican Party would have run the danger of being marginalized for decades.

Yes, a slight majority of voters said — and may continue to say — they opposed taxpayer help for Detroit’s Big Three. But once those taxpayers began feeling the economic effect of the failure of General Motors, Chrysler and, eventually, Ford, they would have been looking for someone to blame. Human nature being what it is, they would not have blamed themselves, they’d have blamed the Republicans. The fallout would have likely extended even to Republicans such as Ohio’s George Voinovich, who was a stalwart supporter of efforts to help the Big Three.

It is now up to the Detroit companies to make good use of the lifeline they’ve been thrown. Certainly the Big Three and the United Autoworkers union have shown themselves to be willing to tighten their belts in ways that Wall Street recipients of TARP money have not.

In Washington, the hard work of protecting the long-range viability of the U.S. auto industry and of digging out of the recession will fall to the next Congress and the Barack Obama administration.

But today, President Bush deserves a round of thanks for what he did Friday.