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Michael Moore: 9 Ways to Rise From GM's Ashes

Let's use their facilities to overhaul America's transit

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 1, 2009 1:25 PM CDT

(Newser) – The end of General Motors is an opportunity for an America that now owns 60% of the company, writes Michael Moore. Let’s take advantage of the death of a firm that built poor cars, battled environmental rules, and shipped jobs away by using its facilities to implement a new system of transportation in America. Moore presents nine suggestions to the president on HuffPo:

As we did after Pearl Harbor, Obama "must tell the nation that we are at war" and quickly convert GM factories into ones that produce mass-transit vehicles, windmills and solar panels, and, for the time being, hybrid and electric cars.
"Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years” and have the unemployed build them. Japan’s had them for 45 years—and they can get us from New York to LA in 17 hours.
Give a tax break to people using hybrid cars or mass transit.
Pay for all of this—and get people to make the switch—by tacking a $2 tax on every gallon of gas.

For the complete list of Moore's suggestions, click the link below.

[Images (2)]

[Quotes (2)]

A car salesman walks next to cars for sale at a General Motors dealership in Santa Clara, Calif., Monday, June 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

This June 11, 2007 file photo shows filmmaker Michael Moore in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

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The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with—dare I say it —joy. - Michael Moore

Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. - Michael Moore

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Michael Moore: 9 Ways to Rise From GM's Ashes