The Many Factors Driving GM's Cuts

Taxpayers spent nearly $50 billion bailing out General Motors in 2008 and lost more than $11 billion. We argued at the time that the auto giant had been hampered for years by over-burdensome union contracts and sub-par craftsmanship. Ten years later, that’s still true (albeit to a lesser degree), and now the bailed-out company is laying off 14,000 workers in North America, including eliminating more than 8,000 white-collar jobs and closing five plants (four in the U.S.).

Cue the media outrage … at President Donald Trump.

No doubt GM’s announcement does hurt Trump. After all, two of the plant closures and much of the job loss will occur in states he won — Ohio and Michigan. His campaign was and is centered on bringing jobs back to the U.S and restoring downtrodden towns in Middle America; GM is doing the opposite.

Democrats were quick to blame Republican tax reform. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said in a statement, “GM received record tax breaks as a result of the GOP’s tax bill last year, and has eliminated jobs instead of using that tax windfall to invest in American workers.” That ignores the forest to focus on one tree, but it’ll swing some votes thanks to amplification by the Democrats’ Leftmedia super PAC. We’d like to say that every instance of a corporation paying less in taxes ($157 million less in GM’s case) led to more jobs, but that’s not always the case due to other considerations.

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