Brian Ladd: How the Big Three's lost clout in Washington may actually help the auto industry.
Who says America's Big Three automakers are lumbering, bureaucratic relics incapable of reading the public mood? Just last month, their CEOs traveled to Washington on their corporate jets. (At least partly because of that decision, they returned home with no federal largesse and hardly any public sympathy.) For this week's visit, at least two of the CEOs plan to drive—and the third, Chrysler's Robert Nardelli, says he won't be taking a private jet.
Still, it's unlikely the Big Three will receive a very warm reception in Washington, even if they do succeed in winning $25 billion in loans. Public and congressional sentiment is arrayed against them. Their best friend, Rep. John Dingell, has just been deposed from his committee chairmanship. For now, Detroit's political clout seems to be gone.
It may be the best thing that's happened to the industry in decades.
Since at least the 1960s, Washington has restrained some of Detroit's worst impulses. And when Washington has allowed Detroit to have its way—in other words, when Detroit has enjoyed its greatest clout—the consequences have not been good for either the industry or the nation.
Over the past 60 years, Congress has been steadfast in its support of the auto industry. After World War II, when General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler made peace with the mammoth United Auto Workers union, congressional friends of business, labor, and consumers stood united in their allegiance to the welfare of the industry. In 1956, the federal government rewarded the nation's largest industry with its largest-ever public-works project: the interstate highway system.
A few years later, as critics began to blame the industry for increasing accidents and pollution, Detroit offered no concessions. In the early 1960s, GM's cover-up of the Chevrolet Corvair's safety defects was merely the worst example of the industry's refusal to take the most basic steps to make crashes less likely or less deadly. The carmakers had decided that "safety doesn't sell," and there was little sign that the free market would do much about the rising highway death toll.
Finally, with public concern rising, Washington decided to intervene. Congressional hearings, and Ralph Nader's sensational 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, helped rally support for the passage of the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which authorized the government to mandate a long list of safety improvements—things we have long since taken for granted, like seat belts, collapsible steering columns, and padded dashboards.
At the same time, visibly worsening air pollution set off another clash between Washington and Detroit. First the state of California and then the federal government pressed for limits on automotive emissions. The carmakers insisted that the technology was not available and that they would be ruined by mandatory pollution controls. But when the mandates were set, they managed to comply....
Read entire article at Slate
Still, it's unlikely the Big Three will receive a very warm reception in Washington, even if they do succeed in winning $25 billion in loans. Public and congressional sentiment is arrayed against them. Their best friend, Rep. John Dingell, has just been deposed from his committee chairmanship. For now, Detroit's political clout seems to be gone.
It may be the best thing that's happened to the industry in decades.
Since at least the 1960s, Washington has restrained some of Detroit's worst impulses. And when Washington has allowed Detroit to have its way—in other words, when Detroit has enjoyed its greatest clout—the consequences have not been good for either the industry or the nation.
Over the past 60 years, Congress has been steadfast in its support of the auto industry. After World War II, when General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler made peace with the mammoth United Auto Workers union, congressional friends of business, labor, and consumers stood united in their allegiance to the welfare of the industry. In 1956, the federal government rewarded the nation's largest industry with its largest-ever public-works project: the interstate highway system.
A few years later, as critics began to blame the industry for increasing accidents and pollution, Detroit offered no concessions. In the early 1960s, GM's cover-up of the Chevrolet Corvair's safety defects was merely the worst example of the industry's refusal to take the most basic steps to make crashes less likely or less deadly. The carmakers had decided that "safety doesn't sell," and there was little sign that the free market would do much about the rising highway death toll.
Finally, with public concern rising, Washington decided to intervene. Congressional hearings, and Ralph Nader's sensational 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, helped rally support for the passage of the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which authorized the government to mandate a long list of safety improvements—things we have long since taken for granted, like seat belts, collapsible steering columns, and padded dashboards.
At the same time, visibly worsening air pollution set off another clash between Washington and Detroit. First the state of California and then the federal government pressed for limits on automotive emissions. The carmakers insisted that the technology was not available and that they would be ruined by mandatory pollution controls. But when the mandates were set, they managed to comply....