It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => Politics/Legislation/Elections => Topic started by: Damn_Lucky on April 03, 2011, 03:14:58 PM
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About this time last year, General Motors and President Obama’s Treasury Department launched a public relations campaign, claiming the company paid back its $6.7 billion government bailout, with interest, ahead of schedule.
The hype left out a key fact: G.M. “repaid” the taxpayers not with the company’s own cash, but with other funds controlled by the Treasury Department. The money came from taxpayer dollars; the Treasury Department approved the transaction. I pressed the Treasury Department to come clean and officials had to admit that G.M. did, in fact, use a taxpayer account to repay its bailout loan.
Given that debacle, it was disappointing to see the Obama administration going down the same road again, this time with banks. Media reports have trickled out, quoting bankers saying they hope to use taxpayer funds received through a small business lending fund to repay their federal bailouts. I wrote to the Treasury secretary, saying that using one federal program to repay another would be “an egregious example of budget gimmickry.”
This week, my fears were realized when a top Treasury official confirmed to a reporter that Treasury hasn’t yet granted approval to any banks seeking to use money from the small business lending fund to repay their bailouts, “but they will.” A top economist for a bankers’ association confirmed the banks’ position, calling it “almost a no-brainer.”
Supporters of creating the small business lending fund last year sold it as a necessary means of getting small businesses the capital they need to invest in their businesses and create jobs. Instead, it’s in danger of becoming the source for another government bailout money shuffle, as we saw last year with G.M.
Replacing one form of government subsidy with another wasn’t a repayment when G.M. did it and it still isn’t. The Treasury Department has an obligation to put the brakes on any tricky bookkeeping that misleads the American taxpayer and subverts what this program was supposed to do.
I’ve asked the Treasury secretary for assurances that a repayment shuffle will not take place, including a description of Treasury’s oversight plans to prevent such a use of the small business funds and for information including a list of banks that have applied for loans under the small business program. It’s time to end the bailout money shuffle.
IDK-But I think CHUCK IS ON ARE SIDE
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This would be yet another egregious violation against the taxpayer.
I think politicians like Grassley are "on our side", in that they see the moves being made by this regime and are becoming alarmed into action trying to stave it off.
But I also hold people like Grassley responsible. They were supposed to be the stewards of our trust, and instead have spent years and decades trading away our constitution and future for the sake of politics and their own political fortune. Now we see the Grassleys and the Hatches of DC trying to play catch up, and whether they succeed or fail, it's too late for their effort alone to garner good will. They must produce results, or they will be run out on the same rail as the rest.
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As you have said, "they are senators".
The both of them have made a career working both sides of the street, they are just less clumsy than JohnnyMac.
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Every congressman and senator understand whats going on....Now one is growing a conscience?
So many issues where conservatives should be shouting from the rooftops....so many silent voices.
May they all hang for thier treachery.
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Yeah, well, a legitimate "come the Jesus" moment I'll take, but like everything, it's in the follow through, there resides the true character of a man!