The Obama administration has effectively ordered the firing of General Motors Chairman Rick Wagoner in its efforts to reform GM and Chrysler. Chrysler Motors is being pressured to merge with the Italian company Fiat.

Whatever you think of GM management – or mismanagement – and the labor unions that contributed to especially GM’s precarious position, the ability of the federal government to dictate what happens in a private industry ought to concern us all.

This is the outcome when you take government money. With shekels come shackles. It also should be a warning to faith-based groups who think they can receive government handouts and escape the secularization of their ministries.

The Obama administration has stated it intends to have a greater hand in the way businesses are run, taxed and regulated. This is a short step to the central planning that was characteristic of the old Soviet Union. It would be worse than ironic if America were to adopt the ways of the system we fought seven decades to defeat.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.