Bailout or Pay Off? American Taxpayers Watch in Dismay as Elected Officials Dash for Cash
- Rick Scarborough
- Oct 5, 2008
I believe American taxpayers must act swiftly and decisively if disaster is to be averted. While most of the mainstream media have been guilty of aiding and abetting the behavior, many, but thankfully, not all, of our elected officials rushed to the cameras to slap each other on the back and boast of how they demonstrated how Congress should work on Tuesday evening after the Senate passed their version of the Financial Bailout of Wall Street.
I heard the phrase, “this is about
OH REALLY? Turns out that the bill that passed with such overwhelming support contains an additional $150 billion in pork barrel projects. That’s hundreds of millions of your tax dollars for each vote, that will initially be borrowed from foreign governments, many of whom hate us, so men like Frank Raines can keep his bonuses totaling in the tens of millions, and men like Senator Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, who profited handsomely with campaign donations from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae executives, while Wall Street, who put our nation’s economy at risk, can escape all risks.
I make no claims to be an economist, but I know right from wrong, and a bribe by any other name is still a bribe. In order to garner the needed support from members of the House, who must now reverse their earlier rejection of the Bailout because you, the voters, melted down their switchboards with opposition, the Senate apparently went from Congressional District to Congressional District and asked themselves, what can we steal from taxpayers and give to donors in that District that would persuade 12 more Congressmen that ignoring their constituents makes sense financially. That’s bribery where I come from and that’s wrong. Morally wrong!
Some of the more egregious and outrageous examples:
The bailout bill contains the following "new" pork::
- Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502)
- Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
- 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident,
The bailout bill extends this existing pork:
- Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310)
- Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311)
- Domestic Production Activities in
- Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315)
- Railroads (Sec. 316)
- Auto Racing Tracks (317)
- Wool Research (Sec. 325)
Like all Americans who love this country, I do not want to see us plunged into another Great Depression, but neither do I want us to blindly march into a Socialist system where Big Brother Government runs our economy. What began as a three page proposal from Paulson has now morphed into over 450 pages of give aways from politicians who are proposing that we take money from the majority of people who work hard and pay their bills and use it pay the bills of a minority who don’t.
I can’t remember the last time I rushed into a major decision that turned out right. My Father drilled into my head, ‘Haste makes waste.” Perhaps a dose of reality might be the medicine that corrects the ill of runaway spending and corporate greed.
I say, slow this bus down and let the chips fall where they may, but I will not let crooked politicians take my hard earned money and bail out greed on Wall Street while pay pandering politicians to do it without a fight.
