To the editor:
Congratulations should be proffered to Kansas Reps. Moran, Boyda and Tiahrt and Sens. Brownback and Roberts for not being fooled into voting for this ridiculous Wall Street buyout bill (HR 1424.)
Handing as much as $700 billion to former Wall Street insider Henry Paulson in an implausible effort to "shore up" our economy is tantamount to putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Hold on to your pocketbooks, folks. The Bush administration may very well have saved their greatest boondoggle for the waning days of eight years of galactic ineptitude.
James Barnes,
Lawrence
Comments
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71_Hawk (anonymous) says…
If Mr. Barnes would pull his head out of the sand and look at who it was that initiated and sponsored the policies of Fanny Mae and Fanny Mac. Look at who it was that sounded alarms regarding these policies two years ago and before. Who has controlled the legislature for the past two years and what have they done? If you really care, look it up for yourself.
ksdivakat (anonymous) says…
Well, I dont know about that but I do know that the fella they put in charge of the 700 billion is the same guy who was an exec at goldman sacs......ya know the company that Warren Buffet had to bail out??Im not financial expert but to me that is exactly putting the fox in the hen house!
canyon_wren (anonymous) says…
It's obvious that these problems began during Democratic administrations (even Carter admits that)--but trying to point fingers at the Dems doesn't cancel out the stupidity of the present administration, and a bailout is only rewarding those who are directly responsible. It is too bad that adding "pork" (a form of bribery) succeeded--just compounding the problem. What a mess--and we will all be paying for it for many years to come!
cthulhu_4_president (anonymous) says…
Blaming people is fun!
FMT6488 (anonymous) says…
Pointing fingers at the Dems is fine and probably correct - but, if this was such a *BAD* thing to do, WHY didn't the GOP attempt to fix the problem? Ans - Because they were making money by the bucketful too!
aeroscout17 (anonymous) says…
OK, so the Dems had control for the last two years. What about the previous six? Take a look at what has happened to our national debt over time. Although I was not a Clinton fan, during his administration the debt increase almost leveled out; on the other hand we have had the largest increase in the last eight years than we have ever had.
imastinker (anonymous) says…
You guys can blame who you want, but this bill was brought about by democrats with republican support. Democrats voted about 2:1 for the bill, and republicans about 2:1 against the bill. Bush would have had no authority to do this alone, congress is just as much at fault for passing the bill.
cthulhu_4_president (anonymous) says…
I blame Jerry Springer. His portrayal of poor people on his show galvanized the demographic, and made them strive to get out of the trailer parks, to dispel stereotypes made popular by the show,. This lead to them accepting loans for homes that they could not afford, thus the current crisis.
Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
Brownback was among those that chose to de-regulate the mortgage companies in the first place.
SMe (anonymous) says…
Oh so many so misled somewhere along the line.Sorry Dem bashers the Republicans were in power when the banking deregulation bill and other safeguards were passed.Oh, woe. I feel it necessary to point out I'm not a Bushco supporter nor a member of the I'm-a-rabid-Democrat-tax-'em-'til-they-cry committee.I just don't like the misinformation brigade's spin.
ksdivakat (anonymous) says…
Correct me if Im wrong, but when CLinton left office he left a 4+ year surplus to bushco, and within 2 yrs bushco had used it up and then some......certainly irresponsible spending by this administration, and now we are gonna pay for it with the sweat off our backs and there is no way that it will "come back to us" in a few years no matter who is in office! In fact, there could be another bail out after the clown thats in charge of this spends the 700 billion!
cthulhu_4_president (anonymous) says…
I also blame decorative fountains. They seduce people into throwing in valuable change that could have been used to pay off loans and avoid foreclosures! By association I also blame the Country Club Plaza for having so many fountains.
BigDog (anonymous) says…
This administration and Republicans sounded the alarm on the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac issue in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. I know they share in some of the blame for not staying on the message but it wasn't like there wasn't effort early to stop some of this mess much sooner. Democrats often stood in the way of any new regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9e06e3d6123bf932a2575ac0a9659c8b63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all `Fundamental Problem'``If I were in a public policy role, I'd be focusing attention on what has long been known to be the fundamental problem of risks to the balance sheet of the United States that are gigantic,'' Treasury Secretary John Snow said.In October 2003, Snow and Fannie Mae's then-Chief Executive Franklin Raines debated in a Senate hearing whether the Treasury should have the authority over new loan products. At the time, the government-sponsored enterprises were under scrutiny from the Treasury and other regulators to because of errors in accounting.``Congress should not open the door for the regulator to prescribe, outside the necessities of safety and soundness oversight, how the enterprises conduct their business,'' Raines said. Snow said the new regulator was needed to ensure financial stability, adding that ``We don't face in my view any current crisis, but we never want to get close to the point where we would face that problem.''Snow said today that ``even in the face of the scandals over compensation and accounting and the options and bonuses, we never could get Congress to cross the line.''Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ``have an enormous political organization, lots of reach into many congressional districts, and they had a storyline that at the time worked -- they were really promoting housing,'' he said.To contact the reporter on this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net
BigDog (anonymous) says…
The Congressional Record on the issue ..... I know Congressional records are a bad place to find information ..... the politician is always a more reliable source .... yeahhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2093924/postshttp://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-190
Hoots (anonymous) says…
The change in regulation that allowed this to happen was signed into law during Clinton...not Bush. I am no Bush fan or a fan of either party right now. They just can't stop spending like a bunch of drunk sailors. This is like the government paying gambling debts...insane.
Mkh (anonymous) says…
Both parties have been guilty, but they are only puppets for the real criminals in all of this....the unConstitutional Federal Reserve.If we are going to nationalize anything it needs to be the Federal Reserve, to end the criminal banking cartel that runs both major parties.