How much did you pay for your last fill up for your SUV? Do you plan to buy another gas guzzler? Are you concerned about gasoline prices hovering around $3.00 a gallon? Apparently Governor Doyle doesn't seem to mind and he is spending our tax dollars to help GM manufacture new and improved gas guzzling SUV's.
On August 23,2005 the Governor announced a $5.4 million grant for the General Motors Corporation to help offset the cost of training associated with the production of a new line of SUV's to be produced at the GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. Now this is small potatoes compared to the $175 million dollars investment that GM says it will make to prepare the Janesville plant for production of their new full size SUV's due out in 2007; but why should the Wisconsin taxpayers susidize GM, particularly for the production of gas guzzlers? Earlier this year, Governor Doyle awarded GM an additional $ 4.6 million dollars to help with the cost of new energy efficient technology at the same GM plant. This amounts to another corporate welfare subsidy.
The total of nearly $10 million dollars of Wisconsin tax-payer money given this year to one of the world's largest corporations is at best a glaring misuse of our tax dollars and at worst ----well you can call it what you may. If GM really needed the $10 million they could certainly have borrowed what is to GM a piddly amount of cash. But $10 million from the tax payers of Wisconsin should be given back to the tax payers not to GM! If you think this is an isolated example, thinks again. More abuses will be discussed in future posts as they have in the past.
Word has it that GM will use their hybrid technology for their future full-sizwd SUV's and GM expects that will improve highway mileage by 25%. If this happens their full size hybrid SUV's will get about 2o to 24 miles per gallon. Wow! Why are Wisconsin tax dollars being used to help GM increase fuel efficiency when GM must do this to simply compete? Are we tax payers obligated to underwrite GM's costs to stay in business? [Their corporate executives and board are paid very well to do that.]
We all desire full employment in Wisconsin and possibly these grants will help our state's employment ever so slightly. But why can't the GM corporate officers and executives give some of their millions of dollars in salaries and stock options to their employees in Janesville as a bonus for doing the real work instead of eagerly accepting corporate welfare from the Governor of Wisconsin?The top five corporate executives of GM were paid almost $15 million dollars in total compensation in 2004. If GM is so hard up for handouts why not have these executives cut their pay? Do they seem to be earning what they are paid, anyway? Toyota and Honda and even Ford are selling energy effecient hybrid vehicles while GM lags and will not have a commercial hybrid before late 2007 at the earliest. Toyota as the leader in hybrid technology introduced their first hybrid for sale in Japan in 1997 and launched their U.S. sales in late 2000. What has GM been doing? Waiting for tax handouts?
Tell the Democratic Governor and the Wisconsin Republican dominated legislature who are responsible for creating the budgets that permit and foster the giveaways that you are fed up with their pork barrel spending. This practice permeates our state, federal, and our local governments and the time to put a stop to it is now! After all it is your money, and you are entitled to keep it rather than have our elected government officials give it away to enhance their own political agendas or for other more "obscure" reasons.Write your elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels and let them know how you feel about this issue. Inform yourself and vote for those who you can trust to spend your tax dollars for only essential public needs. Tell the politicians and the government bureaucrats to stop the pork and waste. Do it today. Don't delay!
Write or call the Governor and let him know what you think about this pork. Contact Governor Jim Doyle at:
P.O Box 7863 Madison, Wisconsin 53707 Ph: 608-266-1212
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