Is the Bailout Sailing Down the Toilet Bowl of Depression?

Republicans are all about the free market. That's been the mantra for as long as I can remember. It's one of the reasons I used to lean toward the Republican party in my younger years, oh so long ago. So how come a Republican administration is overseeing one of the biggest government takeovers of the economy ever? Remember the Savings and Loan crisis and bailout during the administration of the father of the current President? Another Republican administration? Peanuts compared to the current takeover. Two Republican administrations. Two massive taxpayer bailouts of the free market economy. I wonder if there is a connection between these interventions and the lack of investor and citizen confidence in the economy?

According to a recent poll or two, sixty per cent of Americans believe that the country is headed for a depression. Not a recession. Not a bad recession. A depression. Wow. Talk about a crisis of confidence. Sarah Palin told us that Congress needed to pass the 700 billion dollar bailout plan or the country would sink into a depression. Well, Sarah, Congress passed the plan, yet a majority of Americans are sufficiently unimpressed with your endorsement of the plan to state that they believe the country will see an economy ravaged worse than we've seen it ravaged in 70 years. Ravaged worse than we ever thought we'd see it ravaged again. What now, Sarah Palin?

You don't suppose people's pessimism has its roots in the details of the bailout plan, do you? Things like, oh, you know, who's going to make money and who's going to get their clocks cleaned, and then handed a bill for the cleaning? My own personal thoughts? I don't trust the guys in charge anymore. Oh, I haven't trusted the folks in charge since my Air Force days back in the 1970's, but I really don't trust them now.

The party of small government has created another brand smacking new colossal government agency to go along with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and many other black hole agencies to suck taxpayer dollars into nothingness. The Office of Financial Stability. No need to worry anymore fellow Americans; the government is at work and here to help you. Right.

According to President Bush, the rescue plan was designed to "get money moving again through the economy". He added, however, that "we don't want to rush into the situation and have the program not be effective". Ummmmmmm.....Mr. President? Then why did your White House keep telling us that Congress needed to pass the legislation NOW? Why did Sarah Palin tell us that we were going to go into an economic depression if Congress didn't pass the rescue plan NOW? Just like my Air Force days of "hurry up and wait".

Well, Mr. President Bush, your Treasury Secretary is already hard at work rushing into the situation. Today, your Treasury Department released the guidelines that will govern the selection of the financial management firms that will run the program overseen by the Office of Financial Stability. Your Treasury Department also released the guidelines that will guard against conflicts of interest in the program overseen by the Office of Financial Stability. Sounds like everything is on the up and up and everything is being done to assure that the program overseen by the Office of Financial Stability will be free of the financial shenanigans that have brought us to the brink of financial ruin.

Really? Let's see. The man (what, no highly qualified women were available?) chosen to run the Office of Financial Stability is Neel Kashkari. Let's forego the obvious fun with Mr. Kashkari's name (Cash n' Carry, get it?) because I am sure that his selection was carefully considered before it was announced. Mr. Kashkari is a deputy undersecretary of Treasury, or something like that. Mr. Kashkari came to government service after his job as an executive with financial firm Goldman Sachs. Guess what financial firm Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson worked for before he became Treasury Secretary? Yep, you got it. Guess who chose Mr. Kashkari to run the Office of Financial Stability to oversee the 700 billion dollar taxpayer bailout of the financial industry? Henry Paulson. Gosh, I wonder whether Goldman Sachs will be one of the financial firms that will receive fat taxpayer paid fees to run the bailout program? Nah. That would be like saying that Halliburton would profit from fat government projects just because it's former head honcho, Dick Cheney, became the Vice President. Never happen. Huh?

I just don't understand why people think the economy is going into the tank when the guardians of the free market in the Republican Party are hard at work making sure that the principles of the free market aren't actually allowed to work.