Restructuring the auto industry

1 comment

November 17, 5:15 PM

by John Ryden, Global Warming Examiner

 

 

BarackObama.com

This represents a good time to restructure the auto industry.  Everyone is looking for a solution. President elect Obama also stated in his 60 minutes interview; “So my hope is that over the course of the next week, between the White House and Congress, the discussions are shaped around providing assistance but making sure that that assistance is conditioned on labor, management, suppliers, lenders, all of the stakeholders coming together with a plan — what does a sustainable U.S. auto industry look like?"

Right question! The keyword here is sustainable! In a perfect world, what do we have to fix?  The cost structure has to become competitive with their foreign competitors. All of the legacy costs such as health care costs for retirees have to be unburdened from the companies. The cost of health care for current employees would have to be removed. Foreign workers are covered by government health plans.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think people should work for these companies without health coverage just because people in China don’t get coverage. I don’t think that anyone in our country should to without health care. Our country is rich enough that every citizen should have good health coverage. I noticed that John Podesta, Barack Obama’s transition team leader, has suggested that the country implement a consumption tax in the form of a value-added tax to provide health coverage to all Americans.

“We therefore dedicate a small value-added tax of 3 to 4 percent to cover the anticipated costs of providing affordable coverage for all Americans and improving the health care system.”

To keep this in context, Podesta was referring to supplemental revenue to provide additional resources while keeping most of our health care system intact. But, why not raise all the money to provide the funds for a single payer health plan that covers every American through a value-added tax and gets General Motors out of the health care business? We would be asking all Americans to contribute to health care based on their ability to pay while receiving health care according to their needs. We would also be getting foreign manufacturers to help pay for our health care instead of giving them a free ride on imports. This would be perfectly legal under our trade treaties. Foreign countries add value-added taxes to our exports to pay for their health care.

Barack Obama should look very closely at the costs in the auto industry and industry competitiveness in our global economy. We should be planning to build and export millions of electric hybrid cars all over the world to create high paying jobs in our country. This is an opportunity to fix both our manufacturing industry and our health care system. I think Barack Obama has the opportunity to be a great president, but just raising taxes $50 billion or so and spreading the money around is mediocre at best.

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Examiner Coverage: Elections 2008
 

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