Jonathan Cohn makes it better than I can: it's not just the immediate job losses that would occur if the companies were allowed to fail, it's the downstream losses at suppliers and all the businesses and towns that depend on the taxes and spending revenue from those that are conveniently forgotten (tellingly, by many Republican Senators from the South, which never had a purely American car plant located there). Cohn argues that the economic losses suffered in those places would dwarf the $25B the companies are asking for.
That makes sense to me. It also makes sense to Paul Krugman.
Posted by Linkmeister at November 16, 2008 02:14 PM | TrackBack