GMC, How it Influences Political Policies to Benefit Itself, Ehy This Essay

GMC, How it Influences Political Policies to Benefit Itself, Ehy This is Wrong and How to Prevent it - Essay Example However, there are times in which individual persons or large corporations can use their power to influence political policies in order to benefit themselves, especially financially, at the expense of the public. Such people or corporations use coercion, incentives or their close relations to the government to influence the actions of others in the way they desire. An example of a large corporation that has influenced political policies for its own financial gain is GMC. GMC is an automobile company that manufactures vans, sport utility vehicles, military vehicles and trucks that are marketed in the Middle East and North America by General Motors. By 2007, the company was the second-largest vehicle-selling company in North America. One of the company’s policies on corporate political expenditures and contributions is that the company may express its views on particular public issues that are of importance to the company. As authorised by the vice president through the Public P olicy and Government Relations and permitted by the law1, company expenditures may be made to influence or inform voting on public policies that are of paramount importance to the business of the company, its stakeholders and employees (GMC 3). Acting on this policy, the company seems to have gone to the extremes in 2010 to direct political actions for its financial gain at the expense of the American tax payers. The Chevy Volt story was brought to public attention as one of the biggest scandals for the Obama Administration. In this saga, GM used its close relations to the Obama administration to secure a tax payer funded subsidy to leverage and promote the production and sale of its unready-for-prime-time Chevy Volt car brand, a poorly-performing electric car. The GM is a politically powerful UAW2. Modica (par 4) explains that the Obama administration perpetuated a manipulated bankruptcy process that openly favoured this politically powerful UAW financially over other classes. In t he midst of this bankruptcy process, GM’s Chevy Volt hype came to light as the public was presented with the so called green wonder-car that would benefit them. This explanation was then used to justify the use of $50,000 million worth of tax-payer’s money to bail out the company from its bankruptcy. The use of tax-payer money to subsidise the business activities of the company was therefore an added an insult to the injury of the company’s bankruptcy arrangement. Under this economy, many Americans cannot afford a new car and therefore, it would have been proper for the government to subsidise the production of goods that are of priority to the public. This shows that the government decision to commit in such a subsidy was a result of some form of undue influence from GM. According to Ponick (par 9-2), the White House intends to increase government subsidies for the rich buyers of the Chevy Volt and other green technology vehicles up to as much as $10,000 per bu yer, of course, through the use of tax payer’s money3. An evaluation of the situation reveals that to some extent, the company lied to the government and the public to win their support. Early claims about the car praised it as a pure electric vehicle that could secure the equivalent of 230 MPG. However, none of the two claims was true. At the same time, the Volt was also presented to the public as a vehicle that would be a saviour for the GM Company.