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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
David Harsanyi :: Townhall.com Columnist
Now You Own It, Mr. President
by David Harsanyi
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Will the Dems' health care Christmas Present to America be an improvement or detriment to our health care system?


There are few things more satisfying than unloading your righteous rage on one of those insatiably greedy Wall Street bankers.

We have Gordon Gekko to blame. Barack Obama has George W. Bush. So while the president is busy radically centralizing the nation's economy, he, in a superbly eloquent and inspirational pitch, always reminds us that nothing is his fault.

If Washington had a buck to spare, it still wouldn't stop at the top. But let's, for the sake of argument, concede that presidents trigger recessions. Well, then, we also must concede that nearly every initiative enacted in the first 50 days by the Obama administration has exacerbated what Bush started.

Isn't it too early to judge? It would be if Obama had not accelerated the timeline with his "ambitious" agenda, including the partisan trillion-dollar project masquerading as a stimulus bill and the deficit-busting budget. It would be if Obama had not worked early to support agenda-driven omnibus pork bills, job-killing cap and trade schemes, and union assaults on workers' rights, to name just a few of his priorities.

Obama can do anything, apparently, except properly staff the Treasury Department. Aren't those guys supposed to be "fixing" the economy or something?

Then again, it also should be noted that if Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, whose gibberish-infused explanation of the administration's bank bailout non-plan knocked the Dow Jones down 4 percent in one day, is indicative of "staff," maybe Obama is doing us all a favor. Continued...

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About The Author
Ahenobarbus

Well, Justin keeps using the blame a sector
of society mantra with no credible sources.
Allow me if you will:

1: The Austrian School attempts to place
economics, which is a quantitative discipline
that has to use SOME math formulas to establish
its point, on par with psychology, sociology, etc; a "feel" or qualitative discipline. That is
why it is not recognized by many of its peers in the field of economics; does not use any
empirical evidence whatsoever. Kinda like trying to convict a person based on "beliefs"
or "feelings" and not cold evidence.

2: You said that major newspapers have an axe to
grind. While that may or may not be true,
what is true is certain publications and
organizations have an OBVIOUS slant. This
leads me to ask, what is the substantive difference between Justin and some Chomsky spouting professor, whom, when pressed for an actual source to support their claims, fall back on the old "official
sources are corporate sponsored propaganda designed to induce support of policies that
benefit wealthy multi-national corporations..."
cannard? Yet, Chomsky himself is not a
historian or political scientist; his core area
is linguistics. Creates an echo chamber, does it not.

I listened to the arguments about the CRA and
thought that because of desires of Clinton and
Bush to increase ownership, there may have been
something there. The evidence put forth by
credible sources say that if the CRA was in any
way a factor, it was as a ruse by both
Presidents to dergulate the financial sector
and liberalize the credit markets. Why? While
both pushed for increase ownership (Bush's American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act),
they did not follow through with regulations
or enforcement to insure transparency and
an up & up operation....

Mod Mark
The CRA is one of those various political footballs that no one really wants to touch. It's a good idea to get rid of it, but doing so is pretty much political suicide. Anyone that attempts to get rid of it will have to live out his career with the types of Al Sharpton constantly beating on them for being racist.

The CRA is a piece of social engineering that provides a great deal of political feel-good. Even when it is completely unnecessary and doesn't exactly accomplish anything but add regulatory expense (Government hires people to keep up on CRA requirements with banks), no one will get rid of it. When it's an accomplice to a financial meltdown, those who get high on the political feel-good will protect it to the death. GWB, like Clinton before, vastly expanded the CRA and the home-ownership push from the Federal end. CRA is a bi-partisan baby, proof that getting different parties to agree doesn't exactly provide any kind of control on bad decisions.
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