Last year, I ran races for a number of them. Of course they were all conservative and municipal races where I don’t think party makes as much difference as ideology.

Then there is little point in calling this a bailout. At that point it’s just a conservative advocating what a conservative always advocates – tax cuts. Nothing wrong with that, but there’s little reason to tie it to an event you have no desire (or ability, perhaps) to prevent.

However bad an idea it might be, writing a large check to GM can assure that it does not die in the immediate future. If the goal is to keep GM from completely collapsing then the proposed bailout has the advantage of actually doing what it’s supposed to (even if only briefly and at stupendous cost with no long-term plan for viability). A series of tax cuts for people who are not employed by GM or its suppliers has, at best, a tangential relationship to the problem we’re discussing here.

GM deserves to die, I do not deny that stone cold fact. I just don’t see how Aaron’s proposal will have an immediate or direct effect on the problem at hand. It could do a lot of good, perhaps, but that good is not at all narrowly tailored to the problem of the immediate loss of an incredibly large number of jobs.

I don’t think GM deserves a dime of my money OR yours. I’d rather spend the money (if indeed it must be spent) helping retrain the tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of people who are about to be out of work. If the problem is unemployment there are better ways to fight it than keeping GM around as a jobs program.

I understand the desire to want a tax cut as often as possible because you believe that individuals are inherently better able to spend the money. That doesn’t mean that a tax cut will solve any particular pressing and immediate problem. Yes, of course there may be NO solution at hand, but that does not mean that tying a tax cut (or a series of them) to a problem while not intending or expecting that tax cut to actually solve it is a good bit of strategy.

Or even nearly so? And given the half a trillion dollar deficit we’ve already been running, do you think it’s a great time to drastically slash receipts?

I did understand what you meant. Perhaps I underestimate the amount of money GM would save, or overestimate the amount of money they need.