Washington, D.C.–President Bush just signed into law what the Wall Street Journal describes as “a low-interest loan package to aid U.S. auto makers.”
“Have we learned nothing from the subprime mortgage fiasco?” said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “We are embroiled in a credit crisis, rooted in government policies that promoted and backed reckless, low-interest loans to subprime home buyers–loans that could eventually cost Americans trillions of dollars in bailouts and losses. And now, when lenders on the private market understandably won’t lend $25 billion to car companies that often shed billions by the quarter, the government is making reckless, low-interest loans to these subprime automakers?
“Obviously, our government has learned nothing from the crisis. But it has taught industry a terrible lesson: you fail, you get a bailout.”
