| Dan Burton Backs American Auto Industry |
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Auto industry vital to national security
Burton touts importance of industry, but disagress with the plan to save it
By Tim Turner
Perspective staff writer
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Republican congressman Dan Burton might disagree with the current plan to save the auto industry, but that didn't stop him from touting the importance of the industry in America.
"We need an industrial base, and the automobile industry provides a very big part of the industrial base," said Burton in a visit to Kokomo last Friday. "If we ever have to go to war and we have to produce things like we did in World War II, we are going to need that industrial base. I think it is vital from a national security standpoint as well as an economic standpoint that we have a viable automobile industry."
However, Burton isn't willing to give the auto industry a free pass to taxpayer money.
"After having said, that we have to make sure that they can be closely competitive with the imports," said Burton. "The way you do that is you have to go through and trim wherever you can to make yourself competitive. If you don't, the only thing that can happen is for the government to put more and more money in, which means the taxpayers will be putting more and more money into these industries to keep them afloat. What needs to be done is the industry needs to take a very hard look at the expense and the cost of doing business and trim wherever they can and necessary in order to be competitive. If they do that, they will be alright."
Burton said he is willing to help the industry but said the auto industry failed to offer up plans for long-term viability.
"They just came back and said give us the money," said Burton. "When you are talking about taxpayers money, you don't just give that away at $14-$15 billion. I thought you shouldn't support that, and I didn't."
Burton offered up his suggestions on a better way to spur the growth of industry and more specifically the entire economy.
"What we should be doing, in my opinion, is what Reagan did; that was come in and take a good look at everything, help where we can, and then cut taxes all over the place to give business, industry, and individuals more dis
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