(H/T: Instapundit) I am honestly surprised to find that there are people surprised by this.

Among those clamoring for attention and payouts from Motors Liquidation Co., the company that assumed General Motors’ unwanted assets after its Chapter 11 filing, are the environmental and economic redevelopment departments of state governments. According to reports, when GM exited bankruptcy, its polluted factory and land sites were consumed by the Motor Liquidation, allowing the automaker to avoid the responsibility of cleaning up its mess, and state leaders fear there won’t be any money to clean the locations.

After all, this was the original point of the exercise.  GM was an unsustainable, debt-ridden mess; the government takeover and bankruptcy was designed to let it cut out the most diseased portions of its operations and reorganize as something more… ‘untainted,’ as it were.  Or possibly even just ‘less tainted.’  That this ends up with individual state governments left holding the bag on the cleanup* is either an unintended consequence, or just a previously-obscure detail, of the bailout/bankruptcy; it all depends on whether you see the administration as a collection of dangerous idiots, or as a collection of dangerous idiots.  A federal bailout of the state governments’ obligations to clean up a private industry’s ecological mess would certainly be a useful weapon in the federal government’s ongoing quest for ever-more power and oversight.

On the other hand, the White House can’t even spell “Barack Obama” reliably on official state documents, so it’s entirely possible that they stuck already-struggling states with the cleanup bill by the sheerest accident.

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Right now in Washington, D.C., we are seeing nothing short of the deconstruction of America’s free-market system. To be blunt, the strong arm tactics of the Obama Administration’s Auto Task Force are crushing the dreams of many American business owners – and simultaneously putting our future prosperity in jeopardy.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve spoken with the GM and Chrysler car dealerships from my district that have been targeted for total or partial closure by President Obama’s Auto Task Force. They were given no reason, and really no recourse to challenge their closure. It is as if someone threw a dart at a dartboard to decide which dealerships would be given a pink slip. In fact, we still do not know the formula used to determine which dealers would remain open, and which ones would close.

At one dealership in my district, the owner received an envelope from FedEx with a closure agreement inside, informing them that their highly profitable and nearly century-old business was slated for closure, and that they had twelve days to sign the agreement, or face the consequences.

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(Via Glenn Reynolds) GayPatriot has the right idea here:

Those who want to give people like Barney a say in the running of General Motors (and Chrysler for that matter), that is those who favor Obama’s Auto Plan, can show that they really believe this is the right way to manufacture automobiles by put their money where their mouths are.  When it comes time for them to buy a new car, they should buy a GM (or Chrysler) model.  Heck, why wait?  Show your confidence in this plan by buying one now.

…but he doesn’t take it nearly far enough.  We’ve already established that this administration considers falling in with its policy positions to be ‘patriotic‘: and clearly, supporting the GM/Chrysler takeover is falling in with its policy positions.  Considering that - as usual - the Political Class is wildly divergent from mainstream America when it comes to this issue, it is clearly their patriotic duty to make certain that the GM/Chysler bailout succeeds.  That means selling that hybrid made by a foreign auto company and buying an American car*.  And since it’s a crisis, well, they need to do that right now.  Everything else has to be, so this should be, too.

If they were really loyal, they’d do it.

Moe Lane

PS: Me?  When we had to replace the car a couple months ago we went with a Chrysler PT Cruiser. Which I guess makes me a better American than all those people out there selfishly and bitterly clinging to their hybrids and foreign sedans.

*Hey, it’s better for the environment anyway.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

The closing of Chrysler and GM dealerships is going to be an expensive process for Americans. The taxpayers have already been fleeced of billions of dollars to put Chrysler and GM under the thumb of the federal government, but it will be difficult to estimate the additional costs of closing 789 Chrysler and 1200 GM dealers.

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This is the original:

…annnnnd (via Ace of Spades) this is the parody.

The parody’s better. Not to mention, considerably more honest.

Moe Lane

PS: I don’t know whether this site is Left-oriented or Right-oriented, but I’ll say this: whoever made it is not happy. And he or she is right to be not happy.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Daniel Maffei, in a letter today to President Barack Obama, expressed their “growing concern” over the closings of GM and Chrysler dealerships. Moreover, the three congressional Democrats say they want to hear a “compelling justification” how closing healthy dealerships will improve the ailing automakers’ fiscal situation. The three were asking their Capitol Hill colleagues to sign their letter today.

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At The Truth About Cars, Ken Elias posits that though Monday’s announcement of the GM bankruptcy was a bad day for the once dominant U.S. automaker, it was an even worse day for Toyota. His theory is that GM, bolstered with taxpayer dollars and free from creditors’ demands, will come roaring back with bold new products and lower fixed costs, more competitive than ever:

Toyota (or Honda) products have been the default choice. That “Easy Button” is starting to get harder to press for buyers. Yep, Americans will begin to come back to consider Detroit products (at least GM and Ford), and that’s not good for Toyota. And we’ve really never left Detroit for our big pickups and SUVs, while the Japanese are still mostly playing catch up.

Yep, it’s a bad day for Toyota and a great day for America. You can look forward to a new Detroit that will be competitive, if not lead, in cars and trucks for mass market Americans. Count on it

This is pure fantasy. Elias’ equation is missing two critical variables.

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The Washington Times:

Dealers from across the country lobbied desperately on Capitol Hill on Wednesday on the eve of bankrupt Chrysler’s expected announcement that it will close 800 of its 3,200 dealerships. GM is expected to close 2,600, or 40 percent, of its 6,300 dealerships

As part of their plans to get taxpayer-funded bailouts from the Obama Administration, GM and Chrysler both had to promise to sharply reduce the number of dealerships across the country which sell their products. But this is mostly smoke and mirrors. Too many dealerships is not even one of the more serious ailments which afflict the two car makers.

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Government Motors^(TM), the new automaker which will replace General Motors, has already experienced regime change at the direction of new CEO-in-chief Barack Obama. In light of some recent product mix realignment at GM, one has to wonder if POTUS is not calling the shots on GM’s model line-up as well.

Changes at Cadillac, Chevrolet and Pontiac, the GM divisions which were making interesting cars, don’t bode well for people who actually enjoy driving. Those who hate personal transportation and will only settle for boring automobiles as appliances only slightly more interesting than the standard kitchen toaster oven, however, will be pleased.

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For as long as I can remember, most issues of Forbes magazine have been graced by columns on the automotive industry by long-time (more than 50 years) journalist-of-that-industry Jerry Flint.

Over the years, my only real gripe with Mr. Flint has been his long-running belief that “we” needed to do more to help the Detroit automakers - a viewpoint that I’ve never shared. But aside from that blemish, his columns have always been interesting and insightful, reflecting (literally) a lifetime of experience with the automotive industry.

Despite the storms that have ravaged Detroit over the past three decades, Mr. Flint has always been an optimist who has been able to find some reasonable grounds for hope for Detroit and the “Big Three.”

Until now.

In his latest column, Mr. Flint sadly gives up and throws in the towel on GM.

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In a stunning move, the Obama White House announced today that GM and Chrysler must end their involvement in NASCAR stock car racing at the end of this season to remain eligible to receive additional financial aid from the government.

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Former RSer Pat Cleary has been checking up on the United Auto Workers and has some thoughts on the need for shared sacrifice. He also observes that the UAW no longer seems so proud of the great deal it got for its members in 2007; in fact, they’ve sent their press release down the memory hole:

So 6 months ago we moseyed on over to The Google and typed in “UAW.” On their site was a link to summaries of their most recent contracts - a link that’s mysteriously gone now. Luckily, we saved it. So here it is, a link to what they said when they inked the most recent agreement with GM back in 2007. Mind you, this was as the company was by everyone’s reckoning speeding headlong into a trough. The UAW release says in part:

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