NEWSFLASH: The Bailout Worked

A new release by the Treasury Department shows that TARP - commonly known as "the bailout" - will not cost taxpayers as much as originally anticipated.  Estimates show that the program, signed into law by President Bush in late 2008 and re-authorized by President Obama in 2009, will cost approximately $50 billion but has the potential to turn a profit for taxpayers.

Although President Obama should have leveraged the use of TARP more over Wall Street banks and hedge funds for stronger financial regulation reform, the program did its job in stabilizing the financial sector at a relatively small cost. (It's important to remember that estimates of the cost of the crisis range from $1.3-1.6 trillion.)

Interesting fact: Although roughly $700 billion was authorized, the program only disbursed roughly $380 billion.

The bailout is a perfect example of why it's sometimes OK to have BIG GOVERNMENT.  I would have liked to stem the financial crisis but unfortunately I don't have $700 billion at my disposal.  The big banks were the ones who didn't have any money anymore, so they couldn't get together and come with a private solution.  Once at the turn of the century, the U.S. went into a recession and J.P. Morgan, not the bank, but the man, bailed out the U.S. government - those were the days!

There are some things that big government shouldn't do. Big government shouldn't set local school curriculum, or set local zoning laws, tell you you can't eat certain foods or smoke, or tell a girl what to do with her body if she gets raped or knocked up by her 15 year old boyfriend.  That stuff is too small for big government to do and it's really not its job.

Anyway, this is a case of big government working.  We don't want big government all the time but we want big government to do big things like this, fighting wars, making sure every state is treating U.S. citizens equally and protecting our food, air and water to make sure its clean.  All of this big stuff we can't do by ourselves and we need big government to do. And when we agree that there are certain big things that we need to do like build more federal highways, reform our outdated healthcare system, update our energy grid, or send our troops to war, it's fair that big government asks us to pay for those things, because those things cost a lot of money.

Poppycock!

First of all, we should congratulate anyone who has the confidence to use the word "poppycock" in a public forum and Senator Dodd has our thanks.

But secondly, the logic coming from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is completely ridiculous.  Many experts agree that Dodd's bill does not go far enough to deal with "too big to fail" megabanks, but no one is arguing that the bill either continues it or expands it, like McConnell says.

Yes, Washington was a part of the problem but not because we bailed the banks out.  Washington was a part of the financial collapse because there were no cops on the streets and the cops that were on the streets were paid for by the gangs!  Imagine if we didn't pay for our policemen but drug gangs did?  That's what happened with Wall Street.  There was no incentive to police, even a positive incentive to NOT police those financial crimes.

Anyone who had a 401K was robbed by Lehman, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, CitiGroup and AIG.

As the comedienne Wanda Sykes so eloquently put, "A black man might steal what you have on you today, only the white man will steal your future."

Most reasonable people want more financial cops on the beat and rules to break up big banks the way the Federal Government has authority to break up small banks. If these guys want to play casino they can, but they shouldn't be able do it with taxpayer subsidized dollars.

Nuff said.