The current incarnation of the automaker bailout may have suffered a blow, but surely we’ve not heard the end of it. May as well throw out a few thoughts.

First off, it’s important to recognize why a bailout is important. BeyondDC cares absolutely nothing for any of the big three as companies. We have no qualms at all about seeing the GM “American icon” fail, on those terms. We support a bailout because one way or another the big three employ at least 1.6 million Americans, and throwing that many blue collar workers onto the streets is the last thing we need as our economy enters a serious recession.

So given that any bailout must be focused on saving jobs, not companies, bailout planners should recognize that the big three are failing because their business model is dying, and that therefore the business model needs changing. Throwing billions of dollars at this problem won’t make it go away if the dollars don’t address the root cause.

So let’s send the big three some cash, but let’s put some serious strings on it. Our knowledge of complicated economic issues is strictly amateur, but the following all seem like good ideas:

1. No more off-shoring jobs. Period.
2. 10% of each company’s factory output must be converted to things unrelated to vehicles that travel on roads within 7-8 years, and 20% within 15 years. This would diversify the product lines of the companies and help restore America’s manufacturing base. Some in the blogosphere have suggested we look to the big three to produce the next generation of transit vehicles. That’s not a bad idea, but there could be other things that need producing too. Why tie hands?
3. No golden parachutes, luxury jets, etc.
4. Drastically reduce production of environmentally destructive vehicles and increase the production of clean(er) ones. This has been part of the debate already and the costs associated with it are part of the reason the big three claim to need a bailout in the first place, but if we’re to subsidize the industry further, they damn well better be serious about it.