You seemed to have done a lot of research re: federal policy. Rather than just allude to it, how about some links? How about a blog? I'd be interested in looking into this stuff, but what's the point of starting from scratch? Your research is a non-rival good.

Also, I'm still interested in your opinion on the chicken tax...

This is beyond disgusting. This is not even obstructionist. This 60 vote requirement for keeping 3 million jobs safe is simply foul.

No excuses, no rationalizations. Shelby, Corker and the rest are just as useless now as when the GOP scuttled SCHIP.

Kids? They don't need immunization shots.

Workers? They don't need no damn jobs.

Me to GOP: drop dead. And make it fast, before you screw the pooch on anything else

The GOP has a long cultural hatred for anything that FDR was involved in, from it's unending rape of the social security program to it's continuous struggle to remove any worker protections that rose in the thirties to the sixties, workers compensation, OSHA, overtime laws, the right of workers to collective bargaining, and any other worker protections.

Now, when the economy is sliding at an accelerated pace towards real financial collapse they have decided that this is to be the last stand of the republican party. To wipe the UAW from the face of the earth. They'll teach those uppity bastards to think that the workers are as important as the CEO's and stockowners. If it throws a few million of them out in the streets, well, that's what they deserve for wanting to have health care or pensions or to be treated like human beings.

The UAW has been making concessions to the companies for the last thirty years. Every time they do the executives get more money and the company demands more concessions. I guess it's a good thing that the bankers and brokers never organized, if they had, we'd have already seen the banking industry abandoned instead of rescued from their well deserved failure.

1. Autoworkers in Ohio hardly had any use for voting for Democrats at the state legislative level or higher, and depending upon the location, at the local level either. They were all about god, guns, and gays until they finally came around in 2006 and voted for Democrat Ted Strickland, who talks their language, and voted against a nut-case, J. Kenny Blackwell, an african-american. They voted for Republicans.

2. It's ironic that the Republicans are their enemies now.

3. The UAW could have held GM's feet to the fire for the last 20 years but instead beat them down for a share of the greed with useless items like "job banking," guaranteed pay for up to 2 years for doing nothing - oh yeah, that's after 6 months of taxpayer unemployment!

4. The UAW's ideas now are suspicious. For example, they have agreed to let GM off the hook for it's required deposit into their pension fund. How nice of them. Of course the pension funds are backed by the Federal Government;i.e., the taxpayers. So if GM or any of the other two don't live up their agreements on the pension deposits, which are probably woefully underfunded anyway, then the taxpayers will pick that up too.

5. The southern GOP elected leaders are doing the bidding of their foreign auto manufacturers in their states. Big bucks to them for taking such a radical stand against their fellow Americans! The southern states give billions away in tax goodies for the new plants, they get federal bucks to train the workers, and then have the nerve to stand in the way of other Americans trying to survive.

And the right-wing GOP sees this as an opportunity to break the back of a major union Democratic ally. Unfortunatley, they don't care how many of these guys voted GOP the last 30 years or so. Many in the North are Reagan Democrats who left and only recently cambe back to vote Democratic.

The south is hell bent on starving out the North. They are still fighting the Civil War and will take all the Katrina money they can get, all the Fed contracts for their military bases, all the Fed contracts for the ship builders (who rip off the taxpayers with shoddy work, by the way), and all the cheape manufacturing jobs that have fled the North the last 30 years.

These people are not all about the country. They are about greed, dependency, and continuing the plantation mentality that is alive and well among too many elected officials today.

6. All three American automakers cannot cry "foul" as they too have had their share of tax give-aways, infrastructure breaks, and other congressional goodies too. For example, GM and Hummer. The tax breaks on purchasing a Hummer were absurd. and the special tax status given to SUV's - who can forget that?

7. GM agreed back in the mid-90's to develop and bring to the market an alternative vehicle. Where's it at? They rec'd all kinds of special tax considerations and then renigged on their end of the deal. I don't recall the UAW jumping up and down and demanding they fulfill their agreement because it might just be linked to their job survival - especially after 9/11.

No there is more here than meets the eye with all of the parties. I'm tired of hearing how the automakers are more special than the rest of us while they certainly didn't live up their responsibility of specialness, did they?

And the Southern minority should be ashamed of themselves for their open hatred towards other Americans. Stop that Katrina money right now.

And the management at the 3 American automakers should be ashamed, but hey, 60 million or so has a way of helping you get over that embarrassment real fast. Besides, there's always another company some where looking for a new CEO to screw someone over.

And the UAW will have to humble itself. They still are in denial and think they've actually "given up" something by letting the automakers not make deposits to their pension funds since the taxpayers are required to cover that. They are also willing to give up the job banks pay. Oh really? lol

Each of these companies needs to be taken one step away from bankruptcy, broken down, reorganized, and not permitted to abscond wiht taxpayer money only to turn around and do it all over again. There's only one way to cure a drunk. Stop drinking.