Czars belong in Russia, not Washington

Now that Congress appears well on its way toward approving a $15 billion bailout of the Big Three American automakers—GM, Ford and Chrysler—industry leaders are raising concerns about the amount of government oversight that the legislature is proposing.
A little late, aren’t we?
I mean, shouldn’t the Big Three have thought about this before begging on their hands and knees for cash?
What did they expect? That the federal government would simply give them the money without strings attached? Come on, guys, even the financial institutions bailed out earlier weren’t given the money unconditionally. There will be a sizable amount of oversight within the financial industry, too, as a result of Uncle Sam investing himself into the business.
Such will also be the case with the automobile industry. If Uncle is going to give them money, he is going to invest it and not simply loan it or give it away to charity. The investment is that the government will make more money on the backs of the industries and companies it agrees to bail out because it will retain its leverage over them.
Don’t think for a minute that Congress is going to give the financial power back to those entities that have lost theirs once the crisis is over. No. Expect Uncle Sam to keep his hands wherever he is allowed to grab.
Since the Big Three have seen fit to ultimately sell themselves to the government, then they can expect to remain owned by the government indefinitely. This is simply because there is more money to be gained from ownership and profit-sharing than taxation.
The oversight being considered by Congress will likely include a committee headed by what some are calling a “Car Czar.”
Officially, he or she will be the eyes and ears of Congress in the boardrooms of the Big Three. This “Car Czar” shall be the person that the American auto industry reports to under the terms of its loan agreement with Uncle Sam. Kind of like the enforcer to a bookie or a loan shark.
In reality, the “Car Czar” is going to be yet another in a long line of useless career bureaucrats whose jobs are legitimized and justified by other career bureaucrats.
Frankly, oversight is really just a sugar-coated and water-downed term for “control.” Why else would the head of this oversight be called a “czar” if the purpose was not control?
In Russian, the term “tsar” means Caesar, which is the namesake of ancient Rome’s first Dictator-For-Life. And the Roman Caesars that followed in succession did not maintain their power with oversight. They did it with control. And that is precisely what the U.S. government has in mind for the auto, financial and any other industries that it ends up bailing out of the recession.
Make no mistake about it. We’ve seen the last of free-enterprise capitalism in the financial and automobile industries. These will now become permanent wards of the state, so to speak, forced to produce for the good of the state instead of choosing to produce for the good of the consumer.
All I am waiting for now is a line in front of the Capitol—a line of other industries, corporations, companies, businesses, entities and even local and state governments all waiting with their hands out, trying to get a piece of the bailout pie.
There is just one question on my mind regarding this: How is the United States government going to pay for everyone that has their hands out?
Taxpayer and sovereignty beware.