General Motors layoffs are slap in the face to taxpayers and workers

General Motors is making a huge mistake. Despite massive profits, the company is making American workers pay for its own failed vision. In 2009, its poor business model resulted in bankruptcy, forcing the American people to pull the company back from the brink of financial ruin with a $20 billion bailout. Almost a decade later, despite thriving in the booming economy like many other manufacturers, the company is now revising its business model at the expense of its American workers.

GM has also benefited enormously from the corporate tax cuts under President Trump, but even those were not enough to overcome its own deficiencies. The company announced that it will lay off 14,000 workers and close five plants in the United States and Canada. The Democrats and their patsies in the mainstream media have been quick to portray the news as a sign that the economic policies of President Trump are not working, but that is nothing more than wishful thinking on their part.

{mosads}If anything, GM has been a major winner as a manufacturer in the booming economy today, earning billions of dollars in profit while its stock price has been steady over the past several years. Even Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio admitted that “GM received record tax breaks” thanks to the Republican tax cuts, yet it still “eliminated jobs instead of using that tax windfall to invest in American workers.”

GM claims the layoffs and closures will free up resources so the company can adapt to “changing market conditions and consumer preferences” but offers no explanation for why it neglected to do that while it was being propped up by taxpayers. Instead of gradually shifting its focus toward autonomous and electric vehicles years ago, GM continued to pump money into producing unpopular cars that few Americans want to buy. This is an inexcusable error in judgment. Its business model has clearly failed to properly evolve with the realities of a modern economy.

The response by President Trump this week was spot on. He stressed that GM does not deserve taxpayer support if it is going to sell out American workers. He tweeted that he is “very disappointed” with the company and its chief executive officer Mary Barra for closing plants here in the United States but not in Mexico or China, adding that the administration will consider cutting federal subsidies including for electric vehicles.

President Trump is simply keeping his promise to the people who put him in office. He will not let GM get away with moving jobs to Mexico or China after everything this country has done to keep the company in business, and he will not tolerate asking American taxpayers or workers to pay for the mistakes made by the calcified corporate leadership at GM. He will continue to put pressure on GM until the company agrees to reinvest its resources in the United States and replace the jobs it plans to cut.

Anthony Scaramucci is the founder of the global investment company SkyBridge Capital and served as White House communications director under President Trump. You can follow him on Twitter @Scaramucci.