This morning there was agreement (which still has to get receive House and Senate approval) on the Financial Bailout (ahhm….Financial “Rescue”) deal for U.S. financial institutions. This thing is deeply unpopular with U.S. taxpayers resulting in some political grandstanding from our “fiscally conservative” (seriously) Republican friends in Congress. Democrats have by-and-large accepted this deal that now includes some Congressional oversight provisions, the fig-leave limits of executive pay, but other than that pretty much gives Treasury Secretary Paulson what he wants. This morning’s Tom Dispatch compares this $700 billion bailout deal to the expenses incurred by the glorious Iraq war. The upshot: Our glorious Iraq adventure will run up to seven times the cost of the simple financial bailout deal…not bad for an unnecessary war of choice. Makes you wonder where your fiscally conservative Congress member are when real money is wasted, not just trinkets for U.S. financial institutions that may or may not protect the rest of us taxpayers from financial meltdown. Ah, it’s good to have competent government leaders looking out for your taxpayer money.
Here some goodies:
