Sunday, September 19, 2010

Monday Morning Foolishness

Of all the topics that seem to get the Tea Party folks bonkers, highly prime amongst them is TARP. In fact, folks, I don't think that they've supported one single candidate (Democrat OR Republican) who voted for it - the generally reliably conservative, Bob Bennett, amongst them..........................................................................................But, clearly, I do wish that they would take a quick breather here. First of all, THEY WEREN'T THERE. They didn't have to take the tough vote/listen to economists from across the political spectrum tell them that they literally had to do this in order to prevent a monumental collapse. It's the easiest thing in the world to second-guess all of these politicians NOW...........................................................................................But even with the second-guessing here, the Tea Partiers may in fact be incorrect. This, folks, in that yeah, TARP may indeed have worked. The banks DIDN'T go under and the vast percentage of the money has been restored to the treasury. I mean, I do agree with these folks that we really need to try and avoid this scenario in the future but, come on here, what do you say that we ALL put a screaming halt to this vilification. That, amongst a whole hell of lot of other things, to me, is getting powerfully stale.

7 comments:

Rusty Shackleford said...

Its not TARP but the Stimulus that the Tea Party takes issue with.As an example 112 million of stimulus money was spent in L.A.,with 55 jobs created....you do the math.

Obviously you dont care how your money is wasted,but others do.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I think that they object to both, Russ. I mean, I hear "bailout, bailout" all the time......As for the stimulus package, I've said many times that it was idiotically constructed and, believe me, I'm totally with you on the waste, too.

Commander Zaius said...

Will, I am just short of saying we are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Long before Obama darkened the hallways of congress Bush by himself was well on his way to doubling the national debt and not ONE DAMN conservative raised one yelp of a protest. It went as far as the grand high pobah Cheney saying "deficits don't matter":

Cheney to Treasury: "Deficits don't matter"
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was told "deficits don't matter" when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis.
O'Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush's economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key constituency.

O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.

The vice president's office had no immediate comment, but John Snow, who replaced O'Neill, insisted that deficits "do matter" to the administration.


http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/Dick_Cheney_Budget_+_Economy.htm


Hey, I will be the first to admit this spending is insane and ultimately distructive but its damn funny that the great unwashed masses didn't wake up to this shit until a democrat took office.

With the shit eating political weasels on both sides out to secure power and cushion their own nests at the expense of the working people but with the country polarized to the extreme believeing only their views have merit it might be about time we realize America is dead.

Commander Zaius said...
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Commander Zaius said...
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Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

You're absolutely right. Bush put two wars and an expensive prescription drug program on a credit card. AND he massively cut taxes. Very irresponsible......As for Mr. Cheney, that (the "deficits don't matter" comment) was probably one of the stupidest statements ever made by a public official. Why anyone continues to listen to this fellow is utterly perplexing.

Dervish Sanders said...

The stimulus would have been more effective if the Democrats hadn't allowed the Republicans to water it down with tax cuts... which aren't very stimulative. It was also too small.

I'll ignore Rusty's comment due to his lack of a link. I'm supposed to immediately know the details of the example he cites?

I'm anti-TARP. It may have worked, but there were better ways they could have gone about accomplishing the same goal.