Detroit automakers presented restructuring plans to congress last night and I bet it was a bitter pill to swallow. After all, Congress is as much to blame for the predicament of the auto industry, perhaps more so, than the industry itself.

The die was cast in the 1930s when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Wagner Act to stand instead of slapping it down as it had all other unconstitutional attempts by government to regulate labor. You can "tickle the constitution" all you want but a congressional power to establish a labor department and inject government in the formation of unions does not exist — now or then.

But the Supremes were tired of Roosevelt’s attempts to pack the court and a host of other misdeeds and acquiesced on the Wagner Act, giving big government the right to birth big labor. The great byproduct was creating yet another source of campaign funding.

So now we have car companies slowly integrating and labor unions legitimized, at least in the eyes of the law. So far, so good.

World War II breaks out and the car companies build every kind of war machine imaginable. Business is good, pay is good and everyone is happy.

Economists often note that the only time huge Keynesian deficit spending by government ever worked was World War II. That’s because we won and between us, the allies and the axis powers, we were the last man standing economically. With the rest of the developed world destroyed, our business was good. Perhaps too good for too long, making some company executives believe they were smarter than they really were.

It was the 50s. Everything was growing by leaps and bounds, including cars. Detroit believed, rather arrogantly, that so goes GM so goes America.

But in the 1970s a faint crosswind began blowing. Japan was back in business and Japanese cars started showing up in American auto assembly plant parking lots. They weren’t bought for dissection by management; they were being driven to work by autoworkers. Detroit eventually got the message and put quality back in the formula for American cars but the horse was out of the barn.

After the gas shocks of the 70s Congress decided to implement Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards or CAFÉ. Like most government mandates, CAFÉ was too soon, too late and ultimately a corrupting force.

CAFÉ compromises on flex fuel vehicles were idiotic but deeply entwined in CAFÉ was the "two fleets" rule which would ultimately bankrupt Detroit automakers. Bowing to pressure from the unions, the feds prohibited Detroit from importing high-mileage cars to help them satisfy their corporate fuel averages even if it was Detroit owned overseas factories building the cars.

Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers went on a public relations campaign, demanding that foreign competitors, nibbling away at domestic auto shares, build plants in the U.S. and "level the playing field." They did. But the unions, who thought these new autoworkers would slide comfortably into the family, were politely told to go away.

That small crosswind that began in the early 1970s was now a full-blown storm wreaking havoc on Detroit automakers.

Part of the problem afflicting the carmakers was born under the corporate culture of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Management literally thought they could grow their way out of any problem. The unions thought that same theory would carry them along and the government (CAFÉ) was doing what government does — which is getting in the way. Management gave too much and unions took too much in that time period thinking the good times would never end.

And here we are. Detroit has 47,000 empty houses. You can buy a nice one for a dollar. Really, you can. They wish you would.

As one analyst pointed out, inside all the carmakers enterprises are viable businesses.

Detroit makes what Americans want to buy and right now that is not small cars. Part of that problem is the union wages Detroit commands.

The average worker costs a Detroit automaker about $73 per hour. Half that is take home pay and the other half is current and future benefits including pensions. The union did a whisper campaign trying to make people believe that part of that $73 was for legacy costs of past retirees. That is not true. All the companies follow accepted accounting rules which require those future costs to be incurred today.

At $73 per hour, you can see why building cheap cars is not Detroit’s forte and how stupid not allowing them to import their own foreign cars to satisfy CAFÉ standards is. GM builds a great minivan in China at a MSRP of $5,000. Street legal here would probably be $10,000.

There is plenty of work building trucks, SUVs and other vehicles Americans will buy for the UAW. Management needs to be more forceful with the UAW and Congress.

After all, one of the concessions the UAW gave up in the last labor contract was pet insurance.