The U.S. Congress will vote this week on what to do about the America's Big Three automakers -- Chrysler, Ford and GM. GM teeters on the brink of bankruptcy and is screaming for help. The Bush administration does not want to give more than the $25 billion it has already promised to develop more fuel-efficient cars. Democrats want to take another $25 billion from the $700 billion financial bailout program and use that as a bridge loan to the auto industry. That would be a $50 billion dollar bailout for auto. The Big Three and the United Auto Workers (UAW) are lobbying together for the bailout and Congress is to vote on this next week.

This will be a decision about the government's commitment to working class communities, its concern about the future of transportation in America, and its awareness of the ecological disaster that confronts us. We should ask how our tax money might be best used in this situation to help working class communities, to rebuild our national infrastructure and to improve the environment? What if we taxpayers said: It's our money being used for this bailout, so we want a voice and a vote in running these companies, not only to save workers' jobs and communities, but also to rebuild the country and to protect the world's environment? What might that look like?