Nov 18, 2008

Would the most important unelected bureaucrat with total control of my taxpayer monies without fiscal oversight, please, bail me out too?

This is a hot potato that I've been following since day one and that has been grilling my brain -and sense of humor- for quite a long time.

Watching the video of Henry Paulson being grilled by lawmakers while testifying before the House Financial Services Committee on the $700 billion financial bailout plan stirred zillions of ideas in this Cubanita’s mind…

First and foremost, how come Paulson was not grilled before giving the congressional green light to this massive expenditure of taxpayer’s money?

This guy either does not have the slightest idea of what he is doing –or not doing, or planning not to do with out taxpayer’s money OR he has manipulated everybody since day one on this whole bailout stuff.

What about the legislators that put in the hands of this unelected bureaucrat this huge amount of money for his to control and dispose they what he deems fit; with absolutely no oversight?

In this morning’s live video at msnbc.com, lawmakers asked Paulson –and I do ask myself the same question, how would the 24 million devoted to the FDIC for the foreclosure prevention program has helped to stabilize the financial system?

24 millions out of 700 billion? Kind of small amount, IMHO, if the housing, mortgage lending and foreclosure stuff was the main concern anyway…

Then it was said the money was going to be used to buy toxic assets –amid the other extras we already know about and ended up being used to buy stocks and re-capitalize the banks. Misguided Congress? Naahh.

The bait was bitten, and now legislators are asking Paulson what’s the criteria to select those troubled assets, so they can know in advance how many companies we are bailing out.

Did someone out over there in Washington ever thought about asking those questions before passing the law and drawing a line?

Senator James Inhofe is so right on it… an unelected bureaucrat controlling taxpayer’s money without oversight (“US taxpayers paging Paulson’s supervisor, paging Paulson’s supervisor”) that does not say in which companies that money will be used, who does not have a line drawn as to define when this will stop, that asked for the money to do one thing and ended up using it for another total different thing, that gave 10 millions of that crap sandwich his old company (Goldman Sachs), who “burdened” the CEO’s of those supposedly failing financial companies the minimum required limits as to bonus and monies for their greedy pockets, that did not defined what institutions will be eligible for the bailout (even though both things are required by TARF) , that is trying to bail out banks that did not ask and do not want to be in that crap, that needs to be reminded in a House hearing committee that Congress is the one that enacts laws, not the bureaucrats… I’m getting out of breath here…

Now, to be fair (and this does not have anything to do with the fairness doctrine) the guy have said he does not know what will come next and he’d rather stop the crap at 350 billions.

Meanwhile, I have credit card debt, two auto loans and a mortgage of a property that have lost value in the past year.

I need to be bailed out, pronto.

“Cubanita paging Paulson, Cubanita paging Paulson.”

I could be second in line after the big three auto manufacturers… but that is a topic for another post.

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