Comments on: Foreign Auto Plants Have Received $3.6 Billion in Subsidies, Mostly from Southern States

By: Apollo Daily Digest » Blog Archive » December 16, 2008: Obama Officially Announced His Energy Team

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:03:06 +0000

[...] to Good Jobs First, many critics of the auto industry bailout have supported subsidies to foreign auto companies [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:48:44 +0000

Several points: (1) To be fair it would seem that you should also show the comparable subsidies given to the US car companies by state and local governments to locate, upgrade, and/or retain their factories. (2) Subsidies are gone forever no matter what; loans are gone only if they cannot be repaid, and while I too am skeptical they will be in this case, nobody can be certain about the outcome; 20 or so years ago very few of us thought Chrysler would pay back the federal loans they received, but they did, so let’s at least give them a chance this time. (3) There is plenty of blame to go around in all of this debate, and it’s a good example of how tough it is to run a country, unintended consequences, bad decisions by management, and on and on, much of which sounds a lot like the $700 billion taxpayers are spending on the financial industry. These are tough times and require tough decisions, none of which we will like, but like medicine may be necessary.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:26:41 +0000

Darwin: Many of these state and city subsidies take money from programs that need to then make up the shortfall from federal funds – so federal dollars also subsidize these deals indirectly .

Also, the going-forward value of these subsidies to communities as far as new job creation and increased local tax revenue are often inflated by economic development officials and local politicians.

Bottom line, subsidies are subsidies, whether they come from my federal, state or local taxes.

By: Darwin

Darwin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:36:06 +0000

The ‘subsidies’ for so-called foreign auto manufacturers were not granted by the U.S. government. The incentives granted by cities, counties and townships – were coming from the very people who who stand to benefit directly (mainly thru new jobs and local tax revenue) when the plant is located in their area – there’s a big difference between that and a blank check from DC. I see 20 plants as the beneficiary of 180M each, on average, spread out over 30 years. GM and Chrysler want 10 or 15 billion apiece – and they want it all right now. More will be needed later, of course.

You don’t see the difference, do you?