Last week the Treasury Department finalized its $1.5 billion loan to the financial arm of Chrysler (a privately held firm ). That follows a $6 billion government "investment" in General Motors lending arm, GMAC.
The money came from the $700 billion "Troubled Asset Relief Program," which even some California Republican Congressmen supported. But conservative national Congressional Republicans are upset that the money for the auto bailout is coming from "TARP," and among the reasons is the fact that it allows a sort of "shell game" to occur, where some members can claim to the public that they opposed the auto bailout (but really supported TARP, which is funding the auto bailout), or supported the auto bailout, (but opposed TARP). It is all a mess, because some members actually do try to play games with their votes, and try to "have it both ways." It gets confusing to a less informed, "outside the Beltway" public. When I worked for Howard Jarvis he would occasionally refer to the Congress as "535 clowns." I think that is a bit harsh, however, when I read information from California Congressmen claiming they are concerned with the Obama stimulus package, but see on research that they voted for TARP or either "Yeah" or "Present" on the auto bailout, I think about what Jarvis used to say.
The right position is California Congressman Tom McClintock’s, and that is to oppose it all. The American Conservative Union, of which I am a Board member, publishes an annual ranking of members of Congress on the basis of their votes. Readers here can be sure that no member of Congress is going to be given a "mulligan" on their votes on TARP, the auto bailout, or any of the socialist programs that were before the lame duck session or the current Obama era Congress, no matter what they say or write. What matters is their votes, not their long explanations in flowery Conservative language. And it will be very interesting to see how those rankings ultimately demonstrate the performance of our Congressional delegation, who among the Republicans is conservative, and who by their words is masquerading.