Yep, you read that right — eight trillion dollars. Corporate socialism to the tune of eight trillion dollars. Obama’s plan looks to be in the $700 billion range.
The system, the markets and capitalism have failed on a massive scale. This might simply be a correction in the markets — a correction we are circumventing with this massive bailout — but it’s hard not to place at least some blame at the feet of the economic policies (and lack thereof) of the Bush 43 regime.
There’s a reason Congress feels the need to look into the incompetence of the SEC of the last several years. Instead of competent smaller government, Bush seems to have pressed for bloated government at every step (Department of Homeland Security, anyone) and increasing incompetence across the board with each stride.
With the ongoing financial crisis and this bailout, it really feels like Main Street is full of flaming bags of shit and the taxpayers are being forced to start stomping.
From the first link way up there in the first graf:
Sitting down? It’s time to tally up the federal government’s bailout tab.
There was $29 billion for Bear Stearns, $345 billion for Citigroup. The Federal Reserve put up $600 billion to guarantee money market deposits and has aggressively driven down interest rates to essentially zero.
The list goes on and on. All told, Congress, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and other agencies have taken dozens of steps to prop up the economy.
Total price tag so far: $7.2 trillion in investment and loans. That puts a lot of taxpayer money at risk. Now comes President-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan, some details of which were made public on Monday. The tally is getting awfully close to $8 trillion.
Obama’s plan would combine tax cuts with infrastructure job creation efforts. Economists say it could serve as an integral piece to the government’s remaining economic recovery puzzle.
“This plan will be the first direct tool to make additions to disposable income,” said Lyle Gramley, an economist with Stanford Group and former Fed governor. “None of the other efforts have done that directly.”