Hat in hand, they come a-callin’

CEOs of the Big Three American automakers have convinced Congress to give them $25 billion in low-interest loans.

What a joke.

Maybe they shouldn’t have spent the 90s pouring federal dollars into developing foolhardy, pointless diesel-electric hybrid cars that got nowhere, while putting all their eggs in the SUV and truck basket.  (Hummers for all!  Or at least an Expedition.)

Meanwhile, Toyota and other Japanese car makers rushed to make their own hybrid models, fearful that the American car industry, subsidized under the Clinton administration, would pull ahead in the fuel efficiency race.

So now that they have to beg for money from the government, have they learned their lesson?  Heck no.

As an NYT editorial notes, “with nary a blush, the Ford Motor Company introduced the new star in its line: the 2009, 3-ton, 16-miles-per-gallon, F-150 pickup.”  The company spent $150 million retooling a a Michigan plant to make the trucks.

The editorial concludes:

[The Big Three] evidently haven’t learned enough from their mistakes. Perhaps Congress, from which the automakers are lobbying for more taxpayer money, can help correct their ways — at the very least — by attaching strict fuel-economy requirements to any future aid.