Media Debate Fail: Obama, the Auto Bailout and China
In their third Presidential debate analysis, the Jurassic Press Media last night and thus far this morning have failed utterly in their role as fact checker and record-corrector - at least when it comes to what President Barack Obama had to say.
As but one glaring example, there were the President’s absurd assertions regarding the auto bailout and China.
Here in large part is what the President last night had to say on the subject:
“If we had taken your advice Governor Romney about our auto industry, we'd be buying cars from China instead of selling cars to China.
“If we take your advice with respect to how we change our tax codes so that companies that earn profits overseas don't pay U.S. taxes compared to companies here that are paying taxes. Now that's estimated to create 800,000 jobs, the problem is they won't be here, they'll be in places like China.”
This is not the first time the President has made these claims. It is not the first time the Press has taken him - utterly unexamined - at his word.
We won’t. Let’s go piece by Presidential piece, and see what we find.
“If we had taken your advice Governor Romney about our auto industry, we'd be buying cars from China instead of selling cars to China.
There is so much wrong-ness packed into this one sentence.
Governor Romney’s auto industry advice was to have General Motors (GM) and Chrysler file for bankruptcy. Like President Obama has done with swaths of predecessor President George W. Bush’s foreign policy, he criticizes it - while emulating it.
Guantanamo Bay is still open - just as President Bush advised. And President Obama took GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy - just as Governor Romney advised.
Only Romney wanted to do it without $85 billion of our money dumped down the United Auto Worker union rat hole. GM and Chrysler could - and should - have gone bankrupt for free.
As for who’s buying cars from whom, let’s go to the videotape. Obama-appointee GM CEO Dan Akerson gave a speech in Shanghai, China where he proudly proclaimed:
“Seven out of ten of our vehicles were made outside the United States.”
Many, many of those cars are made in China - which is why Akerson was saying it there. In fact, nearly two-thirds of GM jobs are in other countries - again, many, many of them in China. From GM’s 2011 annual report:
“We will continue to grow our business under the Baojin, Jiefang, and Wuling brands. We operate in Chinese markets through a number of joint ventures and maintaining good relations with our joint venture partners, which are affiliated with the Chinese government, is an important part of our Chinese growth strategy.”
And those Chinese Communist government “joint venture partners?” One of those joint ventures was GM being the chief sponsor of the celebratory flick “Chinese Communism at 90 - Hooray.” (That is a rough title translation - my Mandarin is weak.)
Good thing President Obama separated us from our $85 billion - allegedly to “create or save” jobs. Mostly foreign jobs, but.... And as we’ve seen with Ford, no government bailout money was necessary to preserve a gi-normous member of the American auto industry.
More of the President from last night:
“If we take your advice with respect to how we change our tax codes so that companies that earn profits overseas don't pay U.S. taxes compared to companies here that are paying taxes. Now that's estimated to create 800,000 jobs, the problem is they won't be here, they'll be in places like China.”
President Obama illegally allowed GM to carry forward through the bankruptcy $45.4 billion in losses - which serve as post-bankruptcy write-offs, costing We the Taxpayers $18 billion in lost tax revenue. GM paid absolutely no income tax in 2011.
So GM earning profits - domestically or overseas - isn’t paying any U.S. taxes. That was President Obama’s illegal, illegally imposed advice - not Governor Romney’s.
At no point last night did debate moderator Bob Schieffer insert himself to correct President Obama on any of this - as last debate moderator Candy Crowley was only too happy to incorrectly do in defense of the President.
At no point since has anyone in the Press done anything to correct President Obama and the auto bailout record.
Shocking, I know.
