Step Right Up To Receive Your Bailout
The World Newser, ABC World News' Daily Blog does a great job detailing how the Treasury Department is using the recently passed $700 billion appropriated for the "TARP," or Troubled Asset Recovery Program, to buy up bank stock. As you will recall, Congress was sold on the bailout as a plan to buy up troubled assets, but that plan appears to be on a far back burner. That's one heck of a bait-and-switch.
Secretary Paulson even said on Wednesday that when the $700 billion bailout bill was signed into law he knew that purchasing troubled assets wasn't the right solution to the problem.
Remember the "urgency" to pass a bailout bill to buy up troubled assets or else face economic ruin the likes the world has never seen? Good thing we rushed to pass a bill on premises that we now know were wrong from the very start.
I voted against both versions of the bailout bill that came before the House of Representatives because they did nothing to address the fundamental root of the crisis, and that was the credit crunch. But the bill is now law, and America is paying for it dearly. And, our children will pay still more dearly for it.
AIG hit us up for $85 billion in September, but apparently that wasn’t enough because they recently hit the taxpayer up again, upping the ante to $150 billion. And now the auto industry is knocking on the door for their next bailout. Could the airline industry be next? There is no end in sight and no rationale to determine who is and who is not deemed credible to be "bailed out." There is no oversight, and no accountability. And, taxpayers deserve better.