With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Mark Naison: George Bush's Refusal to Rescue General Motors Cements His Legacy of Hardship and Pain

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.]

The refusal to support an emergency loan to General Motors during the final days of his administration may go down in history as the most arrogant and ill informed decision George Bush has taken during his entire presidency- other than his decision to invade Iraq.

The General Motors Corporation is the anchor of an entire region, with factories and parts plants employing large portions of the population in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky while its dealerships and suppliers are a major source of employment in every portion of the nation. Allowing this company to go bankrupt, and risk dissolution, while the federal government is rescuing banks and insurance companies who employ a fraction of the workforce General Motors does, displays a staggering insensitivity to the human costs of unregulated markets and laissez faire economics

If General Motors fails, factories and dealerships will close, hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs, hundreds of thousands more will lose their pensions. But that's only the beginning of the hardship. Business districts dependent on GM workers and their families will be abandoned and boarded up,,towns and municipalities will be forced into bankruptcy. and tens of thousands of homes owned by GM workers and retirees will go into foreclosure. The psychological costs of this trauma may be even greater. Every lost job, every lost pension, every failed business, leaves deep scars, some of which last a lifetime, and puts families and communities in jeopardy.

Just look at cities like Youngstown Ohio, Homestead Pennsylvania and Flint Michigan which were hit by factory closinngs in the 1970's and 1980's .They have not recovered TO THIS DAY, Their factory districts are still scarred with vacant lots and piles of rubble, large sections of their residential neighborhoods look like ghost towns, their business districts are shabby and struggling, and young men stand idle outside bars and groceries.

That this happened, episodically and incrementally in cities across the nation in the 70's and 80's is one of the great tragedies in modern American history.To allow it to happen again, on a much larger scale, because of refusal to use 25 billion dollars from a 700 billion dollar bailout package on the grounds it was meant for banks, not an automobile company, is simply unconscionable.

Only someone who has never walked the streets of Flint, or Youngstown, or Buffalo, or North Philadelphia.could make a decision like that. I would like to take Mr Bush and Mr Paulson on such a walk. Let them see the boarded up factories, the weed filled lots, the aba ondoned churches with stained glass windows once lovingly constructed with the contributions of thousands of immigrant workers. Let them visit the schools and look into the eyes of the men on street corners who have long given up on looking for work.

Take that walk with me,, Mr President and Mr Secretary, and then tell me, and the people who live in Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky, that we have to let "the market" resolve the fate of General Motors,

When factories close and industries fail, we lose income, we lose confidence, we lose pride, we lose hope we lose a sense of purpose.. James Mc Murtry, in his song, "We Can't Make it Here Anymore:" lays those consequences out with brutal clarity

That big ol' building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore...