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Michelle Calls Economic Crisis "Bush's Legacy"

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Anonymous

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The Mother of All Bailouts = The Death of Fiscal Conservatism
By Michelle Malkin
• September 19, 2008 10:27 AM Scroll for updates…10:54am Eastern Bush speaking now…bailout will be “grease for the gears”… “we expect this money will eventually be paid back”…HA-HA-HA…



Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson just wrapped up his press conference announcing the Mother of All Bailouts. He said a “bold” approach was needed to achieve “stability” in the market.

Let me translate that.

“Bold” = Massively massive, taxpayer-funded rescue.

“Stability” = Privatizing profits and socializing losses on a scale we have never seen before in our lifetimes.

I have had it with Pollyanna conservatives who continue to parrot the “fundamentals of the market are great!” line.

The fundamentals of the market suck. The fundamentals of capitalism have been sabotaged.

Yes, yes, crony Democrats are to blame for much of how we got here. You don’t need to recite all the talking points back to me. I’ve been writing about the Fannie/Freddie debacle for years.

But it is September 19, 2008. And this is a Republican White House presiding over the Mother of All Bailouts. Every step along the way since stimuluspalooza began last summer, we’ve heard that every bailout step was just a one-off. Each step was supposed to calm the markets. Each new government intervention and allocation of taxpayer dollars was supposed to achieve “stability.” Each new package of goodies rewarding irresponsible behavior and bad financial decisions was supposed to prevent new ones.

None did. And now, here we are.

This is your Bush legacy — not Pelosi’s, not Reid’s, not Obama’s: A ginormous bailout of every last, failing, panicked financial institution’s illiquid assets that may reach into the trillions — TRILLIONS – when all is said and done.

Reader John in Venice, CA e-mails: “Going forward there is no debate a conservative can win when pitted against a liberal wanting to spend money on social programs. What would the argument be against spending money on terrible social programs? Government money does not work? Conservatives who are supporting this welfare bailout are no different than Maxine Waters or Barbara Boxer. We have lost. Conservatism has absolutely no more moral high ground to speak from.”

Fiscal conservatism has been on life support for quite some time. Bush/Paulson pulled the plug permanently today.

***

I mentioned the other day that both presidential candidates from the Evil Party and the Stupid Party support bailing out the automakers next.

Here’s more:

The auto industry and Wall Street took center stage in the presidential race Wednesday when Republican John McCain, after touring a suburban Detroit auto plant, declared in his strongest language so far that he will fight for government loans to help the U.S. auto industry retool.

Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign retorted that he’s late to the game.

McCain made an unscheduled stop at General Motors Corp.’s Orion assembly plant in the morning before joining his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for a town hall meeting in Grand Rapids.

He told a crowd of supporters in downtown Grand Rapids that the economy can be fixed.

“I reject the doom and gloom that says our nation is in decline, because our best days are ahead of us. We will restore America, we will restore this economy,” McCain said.

At the GM plant, McCain spoke to about 100 workers after a short tour.

“I’m here to send a message to Washington and Wall Street: We are not going to leave the workers here in Michigan hung out to dry while we give billions in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street,” McCain said. “It is time to get our auto industry back on its feet. It’s time for a new generation of cars and for loans to build the facilities that will make them.”

McCain’s support of the auto industry on Wednesday contrasts with his position last month when he visited the GM Tech Center in Warren and said he wasn’t inclined to support loans for the auto industry.

McCain, who also did not vote on the energy bill creating the loan program in December 2007, said then through his campaign that his proposals — a $5,000 tax credit for consumers to buy more efficient models and a $300-million prize for battery technology — would accomplish the same goals as the loan program.

Auto industry officials said they believed that without McCain’s support, the funding would get labeled a Democratic ploy. Michigan’s Republican lawmakers, especially U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, are credited with convincing McCain to back the loans.

Obama has backed up to $50 billion in loans for automakers.

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/19/the-mother-of-all-bailouts-the-death-of-fiscal-conservatism/

If you get a chance- read some of the 300 responses from the readers...A lot of upset conservatives- and it sounds like a party "base" splitting apart...
 

jodywy

Well-known member
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080921/pl_politico/13683
Campaign advisers helped create mess Lisa Lerer
2 hours, 7 minutes ago



The presidential campaigns went after each other’s economic advisers this week — and they’re both right in claiming that the other camp deserves a share of the blame.



John McCain and Barack Obama are each taking advice from people who created, passed and implemented the laws that paved the way to the market meltdown.

Democrats point to two Republican-backed bills — the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, passed in1999, and the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, passed in 2000 — that broke down the firewalls between Wall Street and commercial banks and banned regulation of credit default swaps, an insurance-like product bought by financial services companies to cover their risky subprime mortgage investments. American International Group, rescued by the Federal Reserve on Tuesday, is one of the biggest sellers of these swaps.

“You can’t erase 26 years of support for the very policies and people who helped bring on this disaster with one week of rants,” said Obama, slamming McCain at a Thursday rally in Espanola, N.M. “What we’ve seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed.”

McCain has taken economic advice from his longtime political friend, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who left his role as co-chairman of McCain's campaign after he called Americans a “nation of whiners” in a “mental recession.” McCain aides say he is no longer officially advising the campaign.

An avowed deregulator, Gramm sponsored and shepherded the 1999 bill to passage.

“I am proud to be here because this is an important bill. It is a deregulatory bill,” Gramm said at the bill signing. “I believe that that is the wave of the future.”

According to regulators involved in the process, Gramm buried the swaps measure in an 11,000-page omnibus spending bill.

“There are plenty of other people’s fingerprints on it, but as I read the legislative record without [Gramm’s] support the CFMA would have never happened,” said Michael Greenberger, who directed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's division of trading and markets in the late 1990s. “It was a very nontransparent legislative process, and Gramm was part of that maneuvering effort.”

Also on McCain’s economic team is John Thain, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch who engineered the sale of the firm to Bank of America this week, and Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, an AIG board member.

Several Obama advisers played a role in securing the passage of both bills.

Former Iowa Republican Rep. Jim Leach was another sponsor of the 1999 legislation. Leach co-founded Republicans for Obama and spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month in support of the Illinois senator.

Leach defended his bill in an e-mail sent to Politico, pointing out that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley measure also allowed commercial banks to rescue troubled investment banks this week.

“[Without the law] the taxpayer would either be more on the hook or American assets would find themselves in non-American hands,” wrote Leach. "The issue is principally bad judgment rather than the right to compete. Legislation did not dupe Wall Street.”

Former Clinton Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, both Obama advisers, supported and helped negotiate the bill. At the November 1999 signing of the legislation, Summers praised it as “a major step forward to the 21st century.”

Summers also submitted a letter to Congress backing the swaps bill, Greenberger said.

The McCain campaign argues that inaction is more to blame for the country’s current economic woes. For over a decade, Congress ignored calls to increase scrutiny of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Last week, the government seized control over the two mortgage giants in hopes of strengthening the U.S. housing market.

McCain is slamming Obama for his connections to the two companies.

“When I pushed legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Senator Obama was silent,” McCain said Thursday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “While the leaders of Fannie and Freddie were lining the pockets of his campaign, they were sowing the seeds of their financial crisis.”

On the campaign trail, McCain argues that he called for reform of the mortgage giants, while Obama stayed silent. McCain’s opposition, however, came years after critics first called for heightened scrutiny and followed a highly publicized 27-month investigation of Fannie Mae that resulted in the company's paying a $400 million fine for manipulating earnings.

Even if McCain had succeeded in strengthening oversight, it might not have prevented the subprime crisis. The oversight effort focused on executive earnings and accounting, not the company’s loan holdings.

The two government-sponsored companies have deep links to both campaigns.

Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., picked by McCain to vet his vice presidential nominees, and Jim Johnson, initially picked by Obama to perform the same function, once worked for the mortgage giants. Johnson stepped down early in the process after controversy surfaced over his tenure.

Obama collected the second-highest amount in donations from the firms’ employees and political action committees of any member in Congress.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis served as president of an advocacy group led by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that defended the two companies against increased regulation.

And least 20 McCain fundraisers have lobbied on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, netting at least $12.3 million in fees over the past nine years.

This summer, Democrats pushed through housing legislation that created stronger regulation and provided temporary authority for the Treasury to lend a financial hand to the government-chartered mortgage companies, if needed.

President Bush threatened to veto the legislation, but dropped his objection after a meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Six weeks later, the government seized control of the two companies and, soon after, developed a massive government intervention to buy up hundreds of billions in troubled assets throughout the marketplace.
 

Texan

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Michelle Calls Economic Crisis "Bush's Legacy"
Michelle Obama might be calling it that, but Michelle Malkin sure as hell didn't - at least, not in what you posted. She called the bailout the Bush legacy. Nowhere did she refer to the "Economic Crisis" as being "Bush's Legacy."

But don't let a little thing like facts or the truth get in the way of another one of your deceptive posts. :???:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Texan said:
Oldtimer said:
Michelle Calls Economic Crisis "Bush's Legacy"
Michelle Obama might be calling it that, but Michelle Malkin sure as hell didn't - at least, not in what you posted. She called the bailout the Bush legacy. Nowhere did she refer to the "Economic Crisis" as being "Bush's Legacy."

But don't let a little thing like facts or the truth get in the way of another one of your deceptive posts. :???:

Well I don't know what else her and all her regular readers were posting and talking about... :???: The bailout comes with the crisis...
It sure wasn't the price of tea in China they were discussing :roll: :???:

But you spin it the way you want to......

But remember- starting 3 years ago - I TOLD YOU SO - what would happen to the Bush directed economy... :wink: :lol: :p
 

hopalong

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Texan said:
Oldtimer said:
Michelle Calls Economic Crisis "Bush's Legacy"
Michelle Obama might be calling it that, but Michelle Malkin sure as hell didn't - at least, not in what you posted. She called the bailout the Bush legacy. Nowhere did she refer to the "Economic Crisis" as being "Bush's Legacy."

But don't let a little thing like facts or the truth get in the way of another one of your deceptive posts. :???:

Well I don't know what else her and all her regular readers were posting and talking about... :???: The bailout comes with the crisis...
It sure wasn't the price of tea in China they were discussing :roll: :???:

But you spin it the way you want to......

But remember- starting 3 years ago - I TOLD YOU SO - what would happen to the Bush directed economy... :wink: :lol: :p

Yea and you been spouting gloom and doom for at least that long, you have been wrong more often than you have been right, problem is you wont admit that you are full of it!!!! :roll:
 

Texan

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
But remember- starting 3 years ago - I TOLD YOU SO - what would happen to the Bush directed economy... :wink: :lol: :p
I remember. :wink:

How could anybody forget? You're about the most prolific man I've ever seen when it comes to using the, "I told you so's." Are you sure you're not about 2/3 woman? :lol:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
● Autumn arrived on schedule . . . at least there’s one thing Bush hasn’t screwed up. ~ Conan O'Brien

● The past several days, President Bush has been speaking out about the Wall Street bailout, and today a reporter asked him what he planned to do about AIG. Bush got upset and said, "Why does everyone always spell in front of me?" ~ Conan O'Brien
 
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