Organized Labor Accountability Project

Trump Should Make GM Repay Bailout Costs

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

In response to General Motors’ intention to close American assembly plants and effectively move manufacturing offshore, President Trump should seek repayment of costs associated with the auto bailout. The direct loss to taxpayers when the Treasury sold the last of its GM shares in 2013 was approximately $10 billion.

There is precedent for requiring direct bailout costs to be paid back. In January 2010, President Obama proposed a new fee on the banks that took TARP funds, even though TARP funds were already in the process of being paid back, and with interest. Obama said, “We want out money back. We want our money back, and we are going to get it.”

In 2013, the National Legal and Policy Center asked then-GM CEO Dan Akerson to repay the $10 billion, prompting his widely publicized refusal during a speech at the National Press Club.

The rationale for the bailout was to … Read More ➡

Teachers and Coaches Should Quit NEA to Protest Kaepernick Award

Posted on by NLPC Staff

The National Education Association thinks Colin Kaepernick is an ideal role model. Many members, however, may take their loyalty elsewhere. And frankly, they should. On July 1, the NEA honored Kaepernick, along with several other persons and organizations, with a “Human and Civil Rights” award in recognition of the former pro-football star’s campaign “to fight racial oppression through education and social justice activism.” The born-again political revolutionary, who these last couple years has been peddling the idea that police are conducting a nationwide pogrom against innocent blacks, accepted the honor with predictable melodrama. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way,” he said. “There are bodies in the streets.”

If not necessarily as a pro-football player, then as an activist, Colin Kaepernick has come of age. By initiating the now-common pregame kneel-down, fist-in-the-air ritual during the playing of … Read More ➡