Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

  1. #1
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Posts
    7,928

    Race Played Role in Obama Car Dealer Closures

    July 22, 2010
    Race Played Role in Obama Car Dealer Closures
    By William Tate

    The Obama administration, already under fire for unprecedented allegations of racial bias, faces a new bias claim from a most unlikely source: one of the administration's own inspectors general.

    Decisions on which car dealerships to close as part of the auto industry bailout -- closures the Obama administration forced on General Motors and Chrysler -- were based in part on race and gender, according to a report by Troubled Asset Relief Program Special Inspector General Neal M. Barofsky.

    [D]ealerships were retained because they were recently appointed, were key wholesale parts dealers, or were minority- or woman-owned dealerships. [Emphasis added.]

    Thus, to meet numbers forced on them by the Obama administration, General Motors and Chrysler were forced to shutter other, potentially more viable, dealerships. The livelihood of potentially tens of thousands of families was thus eliminated simply because their dealerships were not minority- or woman-owned.

    As has been widely reported, the Inspector General's study skewered the Obama Gang for strong-arming the companies into closing 2,000 dealerships, costing an estimated 100,000 people their jobs during a recession.

    But the news media has ignored key elements of Barofsky's report -- elements that are far more damaging, if possible, to Obama. As we reported earlier in the week, a top Obama official, manufacturing czar and "Auto Team" leader Ron Bloom admitted that the dealerships could have been kept open, saving those jobs, "but that doing so would have been inconsistent with the President's mandate for 'shared sacrifice.'"

    Barofsky says the administration insisted on the closings even though a GM official told him

    that GM would usually save 'not one damn cent' by closing any particular dealership. ... Furthermore, a GM official stated that removing a dealership from the network does not save money for GM -- it might even cost GM money -- and that savings cannot be attributed or assigned to any one dealership.

    And a reading of the IG's study makes plain that some dealership closings forced by the administration were based largely on politics.

    The report is highly critical of how dealerships were selected for closure, or termination. Barofsky notes that experts said that while metro areas were oversaturated with GM and Chrysler dealerships and reductions were needed in these areas, this was not the case in rural areas where GM and Chrysler had an advantage over their import competitors. [...]

    Although sales volume in small towns may be lower, the cost of operating dealerships in small towns is lower as well. In addition, closing dealerships in small towns could ruin the "historic relationship" that GM has had with residents in small towns and force buyers to drive to metro areas, where there are more competitors. In the worst case, the loss of market share in small and medium-sized markets could "jeopardize the return to profitability" for GM and Chrysler, the (the Center for Automotive Research) representative said. Representatives from the National Automobile Dealers Association also concurred that dealership terminations would cause GM and Chrysler to lose market share in rural areas. [Emphasis added.]

    Nevertheless, as Barofsky notes, "ultimately close to half of all of the GM dealerships identified for termination were in rural areas."

    That is where raw, hard, sewage-filled Chicago politics came into play.

    Records indicate that in 2008, Obama lost the vote totals in the nation's 1,300 rural counties by nearly 80%.

    The Obama administration's insistence on radical numbers of closures ended up shuttering dealerships in those rural areas disproportionately, while dealerships and jobs in metro areas -- Obama's geographical base -- were left open.

    Additionally, it has been widely theorized that dealers targeted for closure as a result of Obama's interference were predominantly those who donated campaign contributions to Republicans. Although evidence to date is largely anecdotal, given what we've already reported about the Obama administration's handling of the auto bailout, such speculation does have considerable grounds for support.

    While that last point is leaves room for debate, the details contained in the Barofsky report are not. As Barofsky points out, the Obama administration was given an advance copy, and "Treasury [the Obama Treasury Department] might not agree with how the audit's conclusions portray the Auto Team's decision making or with the lessons that SIGTARP has drawn from those facts, but it should be made clear that Treasury has not challenged the essential underlying facts upon which those conclusions are based."


    Included among those undisputed facts:

    -"[D]ealerships were retained because they were ... minority- or woman-owned dealerships";

    -Thousands of jobs were lost, unnecessarily, due specifically to Obama's "mandate for shared sacrifice";

    -A disproportionate number of Obama-forced closings were of rural dealerships, in areas unfriendly to Obama, even though such closures could "jeopardize the return to profitability" for GM and Chrysler.


    The media, of course, remain mute about these serious allegations in the Barofsky report. They have limited their coverage to the job loss numbers and tried to place the blame on Treasury Secretary Turbo-Tax Tim Geithner.

    For now.

    Before long, we'll be reading that it was somehow Bush's fault.

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/ ... a_car.html
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  2. #2
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    2,370
    I read somewhere there was a huge disparaging gap in dealers that support one party of the other. Wish I could find that article...I think is was posted here.

  3. #3
    Senior Member ReggieMay's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    5,527
    the President's mandate for 'shared sacrifice.
    I sure wish the Prez would start sharing some of that sacrifice he and Mrs. Prez keep talking about. Vacations every two weeks (at our expense), golf outings (at our expense), flying from city to city (at our expense) is getting pretty old.

    Here's the car dealer info:

    "05/27/09 3:37 PM EDT
    Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Repubicans. What started earlier this week as mainly a rumbling on the Right side of the Blogosphere has gathered some steam today with revelations that among the dealers being shut down are a GOP congressman and closing of competitors to a dealership chain partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty."
    Read more at the Washington Examiner:

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... z0uSGx4aax
    "A Nation of sheep will beget a government of Wolves" -Edward R. Murrow

    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •