The Mortgage Bailout, Deficits & Earmarks Galore
September 16, 2008 – 11:30 pmThe BlogWatch is a weekly piece that is published on the non-partisan web site Facing Up to the Nation’s Finances. Stay tuned for more weekly, non-partisan fiscal recaps brought to you by Billy Hallowell and Facing Up.
It would be impossible to commence this edition of the Facing Up BlogWatch without mentioning Public Agenda’s insanely immensely useful “Voter’s Survival Kit” — a complete, nonpartisan guide to the major issues surrounding the 2008 presidential campaign: the economy, Iraq, health care, taxes and spending, immigration and climate change. Now, let’s get into this week’s recap.
Last week, Public Agenda’s Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson penned a piece for the Huffington Post entitled, “Stuff Happens: The Mortgage Bailout and the Federal Budget.” Aside from the bailout and its fiscal consequences for America, the article sheds light on some important points surrounding the federal deficit and debt. According to Bittle and Johnson:
With so much of the past few days centered on America’s flailing economy, the EconomistMom blog comments on the 2008 presidential campaign and emphasizes the importance of paying attention to what the candidates have to say about the economy and federal spending:
And over on Café Hayek says that the average American household shells out $22,100 per year in taxes. His thoughts on the spending decisions of elected officials are most interesting:
On the “Government Bytes” blog, Paul Gessing publishes his thoughts about Obama’s tax plan as well as his overall effect on the federal budget:
“Obama pledges to follow President Bush in rapidly increasing the size and scope of the federal government. Bush has allowed the federal budget to grow from 18.4 percent to 20 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Former President Bill Clinton, on the other hand, oversaw a reduction of federal spending from 22.1 percent to 18.7 percent of GDP…”
And over on The Hill’s Congress Blog, California GOP Rep. John Campbell discusses earmarks. He praises the efforts of his fellow Congressmen in introducing an amendment to disregard $5 billion in an upcoming defense policy measure. According to Campbell:
For more information and perspective on the mortgage bailout, consider checking out former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich’s blog.
Come back next week for another edition of Facing Up’s BlogWatch.
4 Responses to “The Mortgage Bailout, Deficits & Earmarks Galore”
Msg. Dec. 15, 2006; “Brutha, can you spare a few thousand?”
http://deadmessenger.wordpress.com/2006/12/15/msg-dec-15-2006-1-4%c2%a2-and-the-band-played-on/
Sept. 25, 2008
Dear Senator McCain,
As you survey the wasteland of our economy and the shambles greedy men have wrought upon our nation, I
implore you to do what should have been done long ago, abolish the Federal Reserve Banking System. Now is the
time. This would be a great service to America and our people. Have faith and know that such a deed will propel
you into the White House and send you into the pages of our great history as one of our greatest heroes.
Uphold the Supreme Law of the Land; The United States Constitution.
The FEDERAL RESERVE ACT is unconstitutional!
We now can see that the full faith and credit of the American Government is based on nothing but the greed and
averice of a few lowly men. They believe they are above the law and the obligation of the President and Congress
to protect the general welfare of the American People.
Because this is so, we, the American People demand, that now is the time to rectify the wrongs perpetrated by the
“Money Trust” of 1913 against the United States of America and its citizens. We demand, an immediate repeal of
the Federal Reserve Act and disbandment of the Federal Reserve Bank. We demand that the President uphold the
Supreme Law of the Land; The United Stated Constitution, direct the Secretary of the Treasury immediately issue
instructions to the Federal Reserve Bank to surrender its authority to the U.S. Congress, cease and desist its
operations, and support the constitutional right of our Congress to “coin money…and reestablish gold and silver as
legal tender.”
After signing the Act into existence, Woodrow Wilson said, “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my
country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The
growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the
worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a
Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government
by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
”If the American People ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency…the banks and corporations
that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake up homeless on the
continent their fathers conquered.”
Thomas Jefferson
God bless you Senator McCaine,
Dead Messenger
By deadmessenger on Sep 25, 2008
Now there’s a name we haven’t heard in a long, long, time.
By DAD on Oct 1, 2008
Follow the trail of the Community Investment Act of 1977 through all the administrations between that year and the present. It’s a great place to begin after all the finger pointing had ended.
Bottom line is that neither of these two candidates can be credited with any intervention in that one. Failing that, neither of them have anything important to say save that which the individual voter feels is in his or her own best interests.
That’s where the buck stops.
Of course, given this Acorn fiasco and, if we folow Steve’s thread throughout all these months, most of Obama’s supporters likely shouldn’t be qualified to vote. Thus it’s the other one by a landslide….of sorts.
By DAD on Oct 15, 2008
The land is sliding DAD , that’s for sure; right out from under us. The Community Reinvestment Act is a minor surface distortion on the worrisome political tectonic plates supporting it. Inevetibly, the econoquake is destined to result in a tsunami and surge of citizen disenfranchisement and economic enslavement.
Regardless of who wins the next election or how, I have no confidence “that one” or “that one” will be the genesis of any post election middle class benefits. Get ready for the aftershock.
Now that we have a bicameral Reichstag I suppose we’ll be required to return to bended knee and chant “Sieg Heil” to a monoarchy of financial monopoly.
Crisis of liquidity, credit, trust? My friends we have a crisis of spending, devaluation of the dollar, greed and corruption. And not ONE head is rolling! “[Let us] eat cake.” Give me a pitch fork!
By deadmessenger on Oct 16, 2008