Giving money to a crackhead

I wanted to make a post on my thoughts on an auto industry bailout, which many have speculated over for some time now in this economic downturn. I'm against it. Why should we spend all this money for only a few specific companies in a specific sector of the market? Does this mean we should bailout other companies that employ large numbers of people, just because others deem it necessary? What about if a large tech company was about to go under, would we bail them out, or would we let the free market take it's toll. Maybe I wouldn't have such a hard time swallowing this large bill that will be forked over to me, if these companies were actually competitive. They have been hemorrhaging money for what seems like the past decade. If they would have made some good business decisions, they wouldn't be in this position to begin with. And it's not like they changed anything since the economic troubles. They just keep on chugging. None of them have changed CEOs so the exact same wasteful spending and uninspired decisions are going to be made. These companies will continue to not be profitable along with wasting all of our money. The problem is that they failed to see a market that was changing and now are behind the times. Their vehicles are of questionable quality most of the time. They failed to realize that not everyone wants a giant Hummer Limo.
Look at the foreign car companies that are making (record) profits since they have built up their name for quality and knew how to capitalize a single part of the market. Most of these companies make their cars in America, so the jobs are still coming to America, while they continue to open up plants and increase jobs. Perhaps the biggest problem with the American auto industry is that they have failed to innovate, which is what you need to do to stay healthy in a competitive industry. The best thing GM has come up in recent years is the flex vehicles which run on E85 ethanol or regular gas. Look how far that has come, with very few ethanol fill-ups. Meanwhile the foreign car companies were the first to offer the best in low fuel, hybrid, and electric cars. That is innovation that matters. We here at IBM cherish innovation which is why we built an industry around it. We understand how important it is. The same apparently cannot be said about the auto industry.
I almost feel that the money that would be used to help out the American auto industry would be better spent elsewhere. (Besides the fact that it's not exactly fair if every auto company doesn't get a chunk of it). (TWiT #169 has a pretty good discussion at the end) The money would better spent giving it out to the families that could lose their jobs. We could train their workers to find better jobs or just to give them a nice bonus until they can find a new one. We should also invest in innovation. The auto makers that are leading in the next generation of vehicles, especially those that are green and energy efficient. Since we know that this will help the economy and the US as a whole, let alone helping the planet. Companies like Tesla should see additional funding to further research the possibilities of full electric cars. I just feel that it is wasteful spending.
I know that it is a backbone of our economy and our manufacturing industry, but why should we keep giving money to companies that continue to fail at innovating and never turn a profit. I realize that I may be not as affected about this as others, but feel that we as a country can stammer through it and allow our economy to rebuild on innovation and tried principles, not on free money all the time. Giving them money will not change the trend. Innovation is key, and that is where we need to lend taxpayers money, which will allow us to get it back.
< /rant >