THINK WE CAN .com

30 years ago the U.S. Congress guaranteed a 1.5 billion dollar loan to help Chrysler avoid bankruptcy.  With Mr. Lee Iacocca's deft hand on the tools, the Chrysler repair job turned out well.  But Mr. Iacocca’s victory was far outweighed by the negative results of a few innocuous sentences found in the loan documents which instructed Chrysler to build higher mileage cars to alleviate U.S. dependency on Middle East oil.

At first blush, it would seem that asking Chrysler to produce fuel-efficient cars was a very positive idea.  And it would have been, had not Congress decided to allow that single concept to constitute their entire, U.S. energy strategy for the next 1/3 century.

Congress effectively turned to Big Auto and told them to answer all our energy questions.  And that decision, for the past 30 years, allowed a few car salesmen and businessmen to determine what fuels should power our vehicles.

This abdication of its responsibilities by Congress produced exactly the results common sense would indicate--Big Auto, in tandem with Big Oil, did little to solve our energy crisis and U.S. dependency on foreign oil tripled from 25% in 1979 to 75% in 2007.  And regardless of the price of oil this week, the Middle East now has us by the throat and they will throttle us whenever they get the chance.  This situation is becoming extremely dangerous to our nation’s security.  This is a major disaster waiting to happen.

Congress should not be totally blamed for their failure.  They took their lead from a prominent group of economists at the University of Chicago, headed up by Nobel Laureate, Dr. Milton Friedman.  Dr. Friedman and his legions of fanatical, economic followers basically proposed that many of the most critical policy decisions facing the U.S., and the rest of the world, should be made by CEOs of some of our major corporations.  That those CEOs would know what is best for the country, and do those things while disregarding profits, became the new, American religion.

That would be the Church of Privatization, or Deregulation or, as it is more affectionately known, Free Market Capitalism.

There is no need to take up space here telling you that allowing CEOs to make up their own rules, on the fly, for our banking, financial, energy, health care, etc. industries is very bad business for the U.S.  Just pick up your newspaper and read about our terrible, economic quagmires. Check Google or U-Tube for recent statements by our ex-Federal Reserve chief, Dr. Alan Greenspan, admitting that his lifetime of work promoting Free Market Capitalism was a grievous mistake.

So, with all that said, the purpose of this column brings us to our even more disturbing current situation.  Congress is about to do the very same thing all over again with the present auto-bailout. Yes indeed, Congress has once again told Big Auto to whip up a plan in the next few days that can be sold to American voters.

Congress has instructed our automaker CEOs to return to Washington shortly (preferably on commercial aircraft) with a restructuring plan in hand. Hastily designed in just a few hours, it is likely their plan’s only result will be to delude the American people.

At the hearing's conclusion, or soon thereafter, everyone will congratulate everyone and pat each other and themselves on the back.  Congress will proclaim that, henceforth, America is the greatest and their new automaker plan is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.  The purpose of the whole dog and pony show being to make U.S. citizens agreeable to shoveling vast sums of our tax dollars into the coffers of these companies; and since Congress has no clue about what to do here, they will assume that we lesser beings from Main Street would not know a bad plan if it bit us.

Finally, without a doubt, the CEOs will get their money.  We will not allow our auto-makers to disappear.  At best, it is shaky, national defense policy to drive our troops around our numerous war theaters, and 135 other countries we occupy militarily, in vehicles powered by Volkswagen or Hyundai.

Well, if you are now wondering how we might get Congress’s attention on this, you are not alone.  It seems that our leaders should, by now, realize that they must convene a blue-ribbon commission of our best and brightest experts in this field and ask these people to take as much time as is necessary to come to correct answers for this critical issue.  There are many factors to consider regarding what fuels should power our vehicles in the future.  If this discovery, visioning, and creative process takes weeks or even months, then so be it.

A bridge loan can be structured that will carry the automakers through the next few months.  Hopefully, our blue-ribbon commission can come up with proper solutions sometime shortly after the inauguration, or possibly before if we move quickly.

Somehow, we must convince Congress that this is a massively important decision they are about to make.  They may have to work more than 100 days this year; this process is not a joke; this decision cannot be made on the basis of getting votes; this cannot be taken lightly; this cannot be accomplished in the next few days; this decision will deeply affect the future financial health of the United States; our national security may depend on this single decision by Congress.

With utter fascination will I watch this situation unfold.  Congress failed the nation miserably on our energy policy in 1979.  Are our present leaders blind to the lessons of history?  Will they continue to sit idly by as the economy of the United States is sacrificed on the altar of Free Market Capitalism?