I’m not interested in politics, polls or any politician. I’m not interested in ideology or even government as an institution. I am interested in forward-thinking ideas and in how policies affect individuals. I see America’s positive potential, both for the benefit of our country and for countries and continents abroad. I’m interested in “vision over visibility,” as Bono croons in one of U2’s new songs “Moment of Surrender” – the idea that what we are is not as appealing as what we could be.
Label me a socialist, communist or naive, but I think the majority of Americans voted for Barack Obama because of his intelligent optimism, knowing that our best days as a nation are still to come and that he has the thoughtfulness to lead us to those better days. This, among many policy reasons, is why I voted for Obama and still trust his decisions.
However, President Obama’s decision to ask General Motors’ Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner to step aside in order for GM to continue to receive government bailout funding has been scrutinized this week by news pundits and political analysts, and it was initially disconcerting to me.
The news story that has been running for the past week is that the government stepped into the private business sector and fired Wagoner. Stu Varney, an economics journalist, ranted Monday on FOX News’ America’s Newsroom that “the writing is on the wall for any private company that takes government money. The government is going to tell you who you can fire – who you can fire, how much you can pay them, the perks that they can receive, their business practices and basically what product you can put out.”
Varney went on to say with an air of finality, “The government now controls the car industry in the United States.” You know the classic music from that scene in Psycho, the Hitchcock movie, when the bad guy repeatedly stabs the woman to death in the shower and all the blood runs down the drain? That’s the music that should have followed Stu Varney’s portrayal of Obama’s decision to ask Wagoner to step aside.
But is it all that bad? To be sure, it was unsettling to me, simply as an American. Despite my liberal tendencies, I still retain a sliver of capitalist respect for the separation of private business and government. However, there are important practical reasons why President Obama was entitled to ask Wagoner to step aside.
According to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Wagoner “lost $82 billion in the last four years, took $13.4 billion in bailout money and asked for $16.6 billion more, even as the carmaker’s market share melted from 33 percent to 18 percent and its stock slid from more than $70 a share to less than $4 – about the price of a couple gallons of gas.”
Why should Wagoner be rewarded with control over new government funds when he so poorly shepherded both the previous bailout funds and his own company? And don’t work up a tear for Wagoner’s destitution too quickly – he’ll leave GM with a $23 million pension package, according to the AP.
I think President Obama asked Wagoner to step aside as GM CEO because he has his finger on the pulse of the average American who has seen the wealthier, more affluent in society consistently get a break while the poor and middle class have to work for their every paycheck and possession.
While the Dow Jones bounces irreverently on the stock market trampoline, laughing as the bank CEOs hoard their bailout funds and then distribute the money gratuitously to their partners, the rest of America is just making ends meet. Is it humane for tax dollars to be so freely allocated to millionaires while elderly Americans choose between food and medicine, and some families file for bankruptcy due to high hospital bills?
President Obama has expressed outrage over the AIG executives who wept for financial assistance and then expected it to be acceptable for them to distribute bonuses to certain employees. By asking Wagoner, an irresponsible CEO, to step aside, President Obama demonstrated the responsibility he has taken upon himself to insure that our tax dollars are not misused by corporate America again. It’s a forward-thinking idea that should increase Americans’ confidence that he will retain the same concern for the middle class that he had on the campaign trail.
Nevertheless, Wagoner’s removal as CEO of GM should not set a precedence for government intervention into the private business sector. If we are to forage a new path of policies in America, we must always focus our judgments on liberty and justice. Proposals must both affirm those principles and lift our society to seek what is possible, not accepting the status quo as a reality.
This time, President Obama succeeded.
Stephanie England is an English junior and a Mustang Daily political columnist.