GOPideas... ideas done right

GOPIdeas.com is focused on driving the Republican Party to develop policy innovations, but an ancillary goal is to develop these ideas for the good of the country, not merely to embarrass Democrats. This necessitates a positive tone --- and nothing can be more positive than praising a good idea.

Senator Lamar Alexander has introduced the "Auto Stock for Every Taxpayer Act" which orders the Treasury Department to distribute the shares received in exchange for bailout money from GM and Chrysler to American Taxpayers. As the Senator explains, the rationale is that when the government owns these companies, individual legislators and bureaucrats can subtly (and not so subtly) threaten, cajole and harass corporate decision makers for the benefit of constituents or favored interest groups. This is especially crucial because Team Obama has shown that they are especially adept at obfuscating their intentions to ensure that a veil of objectivity appears, despite the clear political motives that are driving policy decisions.

To improve this idea, Senator Alexander should go further and state that all stakes in private companies held by the federal government should be distributed to taxpayers. (Unfortunately, he sidestepped the question, when asked by Neil Cavuto.) As the Senator correctly points out, such a plan of distributing ownership will serve multiple purposes:

• Giving citizens ownership of an American company will provide a sense of broad-based ownership, which may lead consumers to see an incentive in buying a car from a company they own.
• The employees of the companies can focus their energy on building and selling cars, not on balancing the political needs of various constituencies within Congress.
• Diffuse the financial power being accumulated by the federal government back to taxpayers to ensure that any potential gains on the sale of stock in the future are not channeled into pet projects of politicians.

Call your Member of Congress and Senators and ask them to support S.1198, you can find your elected officials by using the tool on this page.

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