Kay and auto bailouts and take overs...

Kay has taken the moniker of Kay Bailout for her vote on the TARP bailouts last summer, but also for her more recent vote in favor of auto company bailouts (link). Thanks to a commenter last week (link) who tipped me off to this far more recent vote. It was quite eye opening. Kay voted against another auto bailout last year, but not the one this year.

The National Ledger has a story about Kay's involvement in the auto bailout, which is also quite eye opening (link). Excerpt follows...

But once senators get the chance to micromanage business decisions, they are reluctant to pass it up. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, proved that meddlesome government is not a Democratic monopoly. She proposed that Chrysler be forced to give its dealers 60 days to unwind their operations instead of less than a month, as the company decided.

Hutchison fondly recalled that when she was selling ads for the high school football program in her teen years, a car dealer provided the school's first sale. Retailers should be accommodated, she insists, because they have "nothing to do with the cost of the company."

But CEO Fritz Henderson, whose job, unlike hers, actually depends on knowledge of his company's cost structure, said the support GM provides to dealers amounts to about $1,000 per vehicle -- a figure that would be lower with a downsized network. Cost aside, the companies say an excess of dealers means some can't make enough money to serve customers well, damaging their brands.

Is that right? Kay's team and our Texas media have reported all of this as Kay just sticking up for Texas dealerships against the Obama administration's politically motivated dealership closings. Which is it? Is she meddling, or is she just trying to stop the Obama administration from meddling?

The autoblog has some of the latest information (link).

When the government bails out private companies, they get quite a bit in return... such as being able to meddle in companies and dictate terms. Keep government out of the bailout industry. Kay's record on the auto bailout is extremely troubling.