The cowardice of politicians in Congress. And, a glorious opportunity for our new president to show us what he is made of.

Suppose you spend $10,000 more than you earn. Every year you do. When you finally run out of money you beg your banker for a loan. He asks where you plan to cut your expenses. ”Maybe we’ll cut out our ice cream desserts.”

This is where the car companies are coming from. They beg for government billions. They don’t plan to change their ways much. And they have a lot of ice cream on their faces.

Plain facts show that car companies must change drastically. And auto workers and their unions must change drastically. They too have ice cream pusses.

UAW workers make $75 or so in wages and benefits. Average American worker makes $25. Average worker at Honda in the U.S. makes $43. At Nissan $42. At Toyota $48.

Detroit cannot get around those nasty facts. Detroit workers and companies made contracts that are sinking their industry. Or, at least, their part of the industry. They pretend this is not so. They pretend they can go on without having to make huge changes. “If you’ll just give us $25 billion we might change a little here and a little there.”

Sorry, guys. You have to get your costs down to the costs your competitors face. And right now. If you do not you will never make enough profits to make the investments you need in research. And in development and new models.

And if you do not slash, truly slash your costs you will simply go bankrupt. The $25 billion will only put off the bankruptcy by a few months. GM is bleeding $5 billion a month and nearly bankrupt. Its share of the $25 billion bailout is about $13 billion. I know the schools in Detroit are bad, but you must have somebody on the payroll who can figure this out.

Faced with this massive crisis, politicians in Congress show cowardice. They dither.