Like millions of Americans, I'm less than wildly enthusiastic about taking billions of dollars in tax money and using it to prop up failed private companies, regardless of their line of work.   So I greet the news that lame duck Republicans of the Senate have somewhere found some basic principles to stand on, and have blocked such a massive taxpayer windfall to the auto companies, with some relief.

I was never really all that into the idea, you see.  Beyond my simple reluctance to see the government using our money to bail out private companies that are apparently incapable of operating efficiently enough on their own to stay in business, well, there's this -- it offends me on a basic, fundamental level that apparently, the United Auto Workers feel taking a wage cut to a mere $45 an hour is unacceptable. 

To this, I say, quite bluntly -- and I feel pretty safe in saying that in this, I speak for millions of other Americans currently struggling to find work -- if you have a job you're trying to fill at $45 an hour, please tell me where to submit an application. 

I, personally, do not find the prospect of making $45 an hour to be demeaning, insulting, offensive, or intolerable. 

But, having said all that, I also want to say this -- where was this highly principled stand during the first bail out?

I wasn't any happier about the prospect of taking billions of public dollars and turning them over to the private brokerage houses and investment banks than I am about giving similar (well, as it turns out, much lesser) amounts to the automakers.   I would have been a lot happier about it, though, if anyone in Congress -- Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, anyone at all -- had declared ringingly at that time that not one red taxpayer cent was going to be turned over to the banks and the brokerages until they first (a) submitted detailed business strategies to Congress regarding how the money would be spent to keep their doors open, and (b) as part of that strategy, the banks and brokerages had to agree that all their employees from CEO on down would  reduce their salaries to the equivalent of $45 an hour.

$45 an hour is the equivalent (without overtime) of $93,600 a year.  Of course, many workers in the industries Congress is currently either bailing out, or refusing to bail out, work more than 40 hours in a week, and I certainly have no objection to them getting paid overtime.  Assuming an average of 10 hours per week OT, that's an extra $675 per week, which adds up to another $35,100 per year, for a grand total of $128,700 per year.

(Just to interject a little home truth here, that $35,100 -- the amount for 10 hours per week of OVERTIME over the course of one year, at $45 an hour -- is more money than I've ever made in any year of my life to date.  And I just turned 47.) 

Anyone want to guess what the reactions of, say, AIG's upper management would have been, had they been told that to save their company, they each needed to agree to only make around $128,700 per year?  

So, what we're left with in this mess is that Congress, specifically lame duck Republicans, are extremely principled about spending tax payer money to bail out private companies -- as long as the employees of those private companies tend to campaign for Democrats, raise money for Democrats, and vote for Democrats. 

When it comes to throwing our money at people who largely campaign for, raise money for, and vote for Republicans, though, we-e-e-e-e-llllllll, then the story changes a little bit.  Apparently, for the guys who tend to vote Republican, we don't need any preconditions or oversight.  We know those guys. We can trust those guys to do what's right.

As long as what's right, of course, is sending their upper level execs off to a swanky resort for a 'conference' while trying to conceal that 'conference' from the public. 

As long as what's right, of course, is paying out millions of dollars of our money to their executives -- not as 'bonuses', of course, because people might object to that, but, instead,  as 'retention payments'.

So here's how I feel about this -- those conditions the Congressional Republicans just tried to put on the automakers?  Which, from what I've heard, I have no objection to, and would be happy to work under myself, and which I think the UAW should fall all over itself to agree to, if it were even half smart?  We need to retroactively impose identical conditions on banks and brokerage houses which have accepted Federal bail out money. 

If they don't want to accept those conditions, well, then, the government should move to confiscate any and all corporate assets those companies may have, in an attempt to recoup tax payer dollars that should never have been paid out to these guys in the first place. 

I'm tired of this crap.  Can I have $152.5 billion dollars to tide me over until I can find a job?  I'm perfectly willing to submit an economic recovery plan to Congress, and I'm happy to agree to only pay myself $45 an hour until I'm back in the black again.

Oh, wait.  I forgot.  I'm a worthless, no good, lousy unemployed Democrat.  I'm not 'too big to be allowed to fail'.  I'm nothing at all.

Just another American citizen.