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Straight from a Bloomberg.com article this evening:
"In an interview aired today on ABC’s “This Week,” Obama said he wants stricter guidelines and greater transparency in spending the remaining TARP funds."
Further down in the article, we find:
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking on CNN’s “Late Edition” program today, pledged to have no earmarks in the stimulus package."
Can we take them at their word? Let's hope so, but I would be willing to bet that in two months I will have a blog entry entitled "Burned by the Bureaucrats: Full of Hot Air and Empty Promises". I realize my audience may be small and my influence smaller, but I vow that it won't stop me from exposing those who lie to the American people to further their agendas.
Words do matter, and people should be held accountable for what they say (including myself).
The ball is in your court Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi. We will be watching.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Under the cloak of darkness...
The AP reported today in a story titled "Questions Loom Over Use of Bailout Money" that the panel overseeing the $700 billion bailout program found:
"Treasury's Dec. 30 response "did not provide complete answers to several of the questions and failed to address a number of the questions at all," said the panel's second report.
"The new document cited an Associated Press investigation that found none of the banks was willing to disclose what they were doing with hundreds of billions of dollars distributed through direct injections of federal money."
WOW! $350 billion of the $750 billion bailout of the financial industry has been distributed and the recipients don't want to disclose where the money went! And Treasury doesn't want to talk about it either! Appalling!
The $350 billion bailout has nearly doubled the projected 2008 deficit of $455 billion (see http://www.treas.gov/, prior to TARP). And Congress is headed towards quadrupling the deficit in 2009 as compared to the pre-TARP 2008 projection. If Congress cannot keep an eye on $350 billion, how can we expect the possible $1 Trillion deficit-spending package the Congress and Mr. Obama are cooking up to be spent wisely, and without pork? Not a chance!
I believe much of the $350 billion spent on the financial bailout was wasted. I am sure some went for good purposes, but millions went to College Bowl game sponsorships (7 financial institutions sponsored bowl games at about $500k each), who knows how much went to year-end bonuses, and we all know about the AIG resort boondoggle.
The TARP bill itself had about $1.7 billion in pork. The Federal budget in 2008 had over $17 billion in pork (see report from Senator Coburn). What is troubling is that these earmarks were NEVER publicly debated, but just "showed up" in the bill that finally passed. Just imagine what the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package will contain, especially since all the manufactured hysteria from President-Elect Obama indicates that this stimulus package must be passed quickly or we are all doomed. (We aren't, but an artificial panic is "good for business" when desiring to dole out taxpayer money in a hurry without a lot of debate!)
The TARP bill was rushed through Congress, with little debate, and no provisions for oversight. It gave the Treasury Secretary, who worked with the same people who were asking for the bailout, a blank check with no questions asked. From the AP quote at the beginning of this post, it is apparent the recipients weren't to keen on having us know where the money was going. All done "under the cloak of darkness". It appears Congress is ready to do it all again, just this time with a bigger cloak.
"Treasury's Dec. 30 response "did not provide complete answers to several of the questions and failed to address a number of the questions at all," said the panel's second report.
"The new document cited an Associated Press investigation that found none of the banks was willing to disclose what they were doing with hundreds of billions of dollars distributed through direct injections of federal money."
WOW! $350 billion of the $750 billion bailout of the financial industry has been distributed and the recipients don't want to disclose where the money went! And Treasury doesn't want to talk about it either! Appalling!
The $350 billion bailout has nearly doubled the projected 2008 deficit of $455 billion (see http://www.treas.gov/, prior to TARP). And Congress is headed towards quadrupling the deficit in 2009 as compared to the pre-TARP 2008 projection. If Congress cannot keep an eye on $350 billion, how can we expect the possible $1 Trillion deficit-spending package the Congress and Mr. Obama are cooking up to be spent wisely, and without pork? Not a chance!
I believe much of the $350 billion spent on the financial bailout was wasted. I am sure some went for good purposes, but millions went to College Bowl game sponsorships (7 financial institutions sponsored bowl games at about $500k each), who knows how much went to year-end bonuses, and we all know about the AIG resort boondoggle.
The TARP bill itself had about $1.7 billion in pork. The Federal budget in 2008 had over $17 billion in pork (see report from Senator Coburn). What is troubling is that these earmarks were NEVER publicly debated, but just "showed up" in the bill that finally passed. Just imagine what the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package will contain, especially since all the manufactured hysteria from President-Elect Obama indicates that this stimulus package must be passed quickly or we are all doomed. (We aren't, but an artificial panic is "good for business" when desiring to dole out taxpayer money in a hurry without a lot of debate!)
The TARP bill was rushed through Congress, with little debate, and no provisions for oversight. It gave the Treasury Secretary, who worked with the same people who were asking for the bailout, a blank check with no questions asked. From the AP quote at the beginning of this post, it is apparent the recipients weren't to keen on having us know where the money was going. All done "under the cloak of darkness". It appears Congress is ready to do it all again, just this time with a bigger cloak.
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