There's a reason I don't own GM stock. Why does Congress get to force me to buy it now?

You get more of what you subsidize, and less of what you tax. Congress’s urgent task in the current bailout mania is to avoid producing more of what it doesn’t want – such as short-sighted management and products no one wants to buy.

General Motors and its ailing cousins lumbered onto the floor of Congress last week, begging for $50 billion – money it could not convince us to willingly spend for its unlovely products, and money which it now proposes to take from us by the force of legislation.

We don’t even get a free SUV in the bargain.

When some lawmakers balked at the price tag – call it the beginnings of a return by Republicans to fiscal sanity – the auto industry dug its collective toe into the carpet yesterday and mumbled that maybe $25 billion would get the job done.

Here’s a question: Why should we bestow the public treasure on the same brain trust that failed to foresee that growing global demand for oil would drive up gasoline prices, and drive down demand for its SUV-heavy fleet? (According to Edmunds Auto Observer, SUVs make up about half of GM’s sales, versus about a third for Toyota.)

The automotive industry may be due for another round of consolidation. It’s true that our national security requires domestic manufacturing capacity – but that doesn’t translate into three automakers, in their current configuration.

And here’s another question: Why should we, the taxpayers, want to buy an equity stake in these poorly performing companies? Isn’t an equity stake what GM, Ford, & Chrysler LLC offer for sale every day on the New York Stock Exchange – a stake that fewer and fewer people want to buy? What do those people know that Sen. Henry Reid doesn’t know?

Sen. Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi seem to be making the argument that the auto bailout makes sense because of the jobs of those folks who work in the industry. But if relief for troubled workers in a recession is the goal, this bailout is an awfully inefficient way to get there.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1,282,000 people are employed in the manufacture of “motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment” – a.k.a. the automotive industry. That’s not just the Big Three, but all their suppliers as well.

The $50 billion bailout would give every one of those people $39,000 each. (You can do the math: $50,000,000 divided by 1,282,000.) If it’s half, the per-person cost is $18,500.

If the worry is the workers, just give them the money and bypass the CEOs. Better yet: let the consolidation begin. It's time, and America will ultimately be stronger.