Where Did President Obama Get the Authority to take Over General Motors?

GM CEO

The president, although he denies it, lacks the congressional, legislative, and more importantly, the constitutional authority to take over a controlling interest in General Motors and Chrysler. But that is what he did anyway. The president has seized a 60% controlling interest in the automaker. He claims that he is a “reluctant equity owner,” but if he were so reluctant he wouldn’t have done it.

For a bunch of folks who say they don’t want to be in the day-to-day operation and don’t want to manage the old Chrysler and the new Chrysler into bankruptcy, they sure seem to be doing that – telling them how much they can spend on advertising, rejecting opportunities to avoid bankruptcy for both Chrysler and GM

 There were other options; GM could have filed for bankruptcy without the president getting involved and without wasting our taxpayer money. That is what should have happened but that is not what happened. The president willingly, not reluctantly, became the controlling partner of GM. To insure that the government became the controlling partner he gave GM another $30 billion even as they were claiming bankruptcy. He did this so that he could dictate what type of cars GM could manufacture. He got what he wanted. But he did it illegally regardless of his claim that he has not overstepped the constitution or congress.

   But this all started before this president took office. It started with President Bush. One of his last acts in office was to ignore congress when they failed to pass legislation that would give him the authority to bailout the automakers. Once that happened, President Bush then decided to sidestep their decision and use TARP money, which was supposed to be used only to bailout financial institutions, to bailout the automakers.

  President Bush left office on an extremely sour note with me by agreeing to all of these bailouts in the first place, and then when he ignored congress and unconstitutionally gave money to the auto companies our fate was sealed. The current president is now picking up where the last one left off.

  Nobody will ever be able to say for sure what President Bush’s plan would have been moving forward but I would bet that he never envisioned the government actually taking over an automaker. At least I like to think that he never would have considered taking over a private company. But once the current president took over all bets were off. We now have a president that thinks only government can solve problems and his initial reaction was to seize control of the company even without the authority. The president took President Bush’s ill advised power grab to the next level; government seizure and control.

  Last week 36 members of congress, including 6 Democrats asked the president in a letter to give them back the power that was unconstitutionally taken away from them. Needless to say, they were ignored. Yet they will do nothing. The Democrat controlled congress is not going to do anything that appears to go against what the popular president wants and that includes his ignoring of their authority. The authority that was given to the congress for the purpose of checks and balances.

  So we now have a president who is overreaching and not only meddling in the affairs of a private company, he is also hiring and firing management of that company. He is ordering the closing of dealerships and costing Americans thousands of jobs.

  This sets a precedent that can have far reaching consequences and the American people seem oblivious to what is going on here. Do the American people really think that it is okay for any president to seize control of a private company? Is that the point we have reached in this country?

  When did it become acceptable for a president to grab so much power and when did congress become so impotent to stop it?