To add insult to injury, taxpayers aren’t even allowed to access the application for the loan, and DM&E is a privately-held company that withholds its financial records from scrutiny. There is almost no publicly-available information about who owns the company and how likely it is to be able to repay the loan. Independent studies - done with admittedly too little information because the real numbers are withheld by the company - make it clear that DM&E is unlikely to be able to make its loan payments.
Why should you care?
Because deals like the DM&E loan are becoming common practice, barely worthy of notice by the media and the political class. Back in 1979, Congress vigorously debated the bailout of Chrysler before putting taxpayers on the hook for a $1.5 billion loan. Today, a Freshman Senator can earmark $2.3 billion in loans for his former employer without eliciting a peep.
That’s just how its done in Washington these days, and we are supposed to shut up and take it.
This isn’t what Republican control of Congress was supposed to mean. And for anyone dedicated to free markets and limited government, it’s a scary indicator of what the future could be like without serious reform.
David Strom is President of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota, whose weekly radio program Taxpayers League Live! is now available for streaming or podcasting on Townhall.com.