Any company that steals money from taxpayers is despicable, but General Motors is especially reprehensible for dishonesty. Taking money from the left pockets of taxpayers and putting it in our right pockets is not a repayment, as explained by Shikha Dalmia in a column for Forbes.com. Her most important observation, after churning through the numbers, is that “GM is using government money to pay back government money to get more government money.” Even politicians would be reluctant to tell the kind of bold-faced lie that GM’s CEO is peddling to the nation. The only appropriate response from every moral person is to boycott this sleazy and corrupt company. Fortunately, some members of Congress are aware of GM’s scam:
A top Senate Republican on Thursday accused the Obama administration of misleading taxpayers about General Motors’ loan repayment, saying the struggling auto giant was only able to repay its bailout money by dipping into a separate pot of bailout money. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s charge was backed up by the inspector general for the bailout — also known as the Trouble Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Watchdog Neil Barofsky told Fox News, as well as the Senate Finance Committee, that General Motors used bailout money to pay back the federal government. …Vice President Biden on Wednesday called the GM repayment a “huge accomplishment.” But Barofsky told Fox News that while it’s “somewhat good news,” there’s a big catch. “I think the one thing that a lot of people overlook with this is where they got the money to pay back the loan. And it isn’t from earnings. … It’s actually from another pool of TARP money that they’ve already received,” he said Wednesday. “I don’t think we should exaggerate it too much. Remember that the source of this money is just other TARP money.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/22/grassley-slams-gm-administration-loans-repaid-bailout-money/
