Jumping across the partisan divide

Ayn Rand may have feared it, but John McCain is working with Barack Obama and President-elect Obama's transition office has a statement:

“At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time. It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family. We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation’s security.”

I am truly happy to see that John McCain and Barack Obama are working together. It need to be done - the brightest minds in Washington and from all over the nation and world to help solve the problems that we dug ourselves into. This will be about compromise and not unilateral action. And we may have to slow ourselves down so that the compromises that need to be made are made.

Throwing money at the problem does not solve the problem. Sitting down and reviewing all of our options, taking appropriate action, and being generally thoughtful will help mitigate damage. Both McCain and Obama know that. GM, Ford, Chrysler, don't deserve to be saved, at least not in their current forms.

Why?

They've run their business models into the ground. It's truly their fault. Writing a blank check to them won't solve squat. Unions, companies, and the government need to sit down and have a painful talk about the realities of the American automobile. We need to be able to produce quality in quantity in order to be competitive. All the big three have put out recently are quantities of shit. Believe me, I own one. As such, I bear responsibility in this mess, for further enabling the poor business practices of GM. There needs to be a major shakeup in how they do things. Efficiency, business growth, and environmental stewardship, are among the top for both manufacturers and unions.

We made our mess. Let's get about to cleaning it up.

In your face, Ayn Rand.