A NASCAR prohibition would be right on Obama’s track

April 13, 2009 by Alex Epstein

On April Fool’s Day, Car and Driver published a phony news story claiming that the Obama Administration had ordered GM and Chrysler, recipients of bailout money, to cease NASCAR activities:

In a move sure to spark outrage, the White House announced today that GM and Chrysler must cease participation in NASCAR at the end of the 2009 season if they hope to receive any additional financial aid from the government…A complete withdrawal from America’s premier racing series is expected to save more than $250 million between GM and Chrysler…

Many in the industry, including those close to NASCAR, were not amused, and rallied to have the article taken down. (It takes some digging to find a cached copy; the one I found is no longer available.) Car and Driver apologized for “going too far.”

No pun intended, but are you kidding me? The government is in reality dictating which CEOs must be fired, which companies must merge, what kind of cars they must make, what labor policies they must follow–and people are up in arms over a fictional policy that is almost mild compared to what the government is actually doing?

In case it takes the idea of government controlling NASCAR to wake anyone up, let’s be clear: the principle that the government has the right and the wisdom to dictate every aspect of industry, NASCAR included, has already been conceded by us, the American people. The only thing saving GM and Chrysler’s NASCAR programs is the votes politicians want from fans. Unfortunately, when it comes to the government’s broader takeover of industry, Americans’ votes are squarely with the administration.

There is an alternative. Liberate auto companies from stifling labor laws and fleet requirements, and let the chips fall where they may. Stop calling for the government to invest in the auto industry. As we are seeing, once the government buys the auto industry, it owns it.