Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Brace yourself. The government is going to take care of us.

The Senate majority voted yes tonight on a bill very similar to the one that was just rejected by the House. I'm not a legislator so I do not know the full process but I would venture to say that rewriting a bill in order to reduce the powers it grants to the Treasury and to better protect the taxpayers should take more than a day. According to CNN Money what they did instead was attach Senate add-ons causing “the bill's initial price tag will be higher than the $700 billion dollar” figure we were just starting to get comfortable with. The bill now includes “elements designed to attract House Republican votes - particularly popular tax measures that have garnered bipartisan support.” They took the same principles from one bill and added power windows and power seats to make it more appealing to the Representatives that denied it the first time. They didn’t even change the name. The Senate voted tonight on H.R. 1424; the H.R. stands for House of Representatives. "Fails in the House, just give it to the Senate they know how to sweeten it up, then send it back." These tax breaks may be very beneficial to those they are intended to help and they are probably a long time coming. It is a crime that our government is only allowing us these tax breaks in exchange for $700 billion dollars. I have a strong feeling they are going to get more money than we are. No matter how you try and spin this thing Washington is taking money out of our pockets people not putting money in. Think about this logically. Would $700 billion dollars have a better chance of stimulating the economy if it was left in our wallets and pumped into the markets by us, the consumers, or if that money was taken out of our pocket by the government to spend how they see fit?

White House Spokesman Tony Fratto passed on this message today. "This morning we're seeing increased evidence of the credit squeeze on small businesses and municipalities all across the country. So it's critically important that we approve legislation this week and limit further damage to our economy." There are still the undertones of impending doom in his words. Washington now knows that we are aware of the fact they were trying everything they could to sell us this “plan.” They are even admitting it now stating that “the hurdle is overcoming the word ‘bailout.’ ” The New York Times even wrote an article titled Labeled as a Bailout, Plan Was Hard to Sell to a Skeptical Public. Well of course it was hard to sell to us because you are asking for over $700 billion dollars and we do not like letting you take that money from other programs where it would be better spent. This “taxpayer” money is not going to be collected door to door by the government it is going to be taken from places where it has already been allocated. Places we worked hard to get that money to. We vote for local representatives and governors and we watch them make it to Congress all the time hoping they will do with our money what they said they would. And as soon as we get close they try a trick like this. Good thing the Federal Reserve can just print more money anytime it needs to. Just create some more currency out of thin air for this purpose at least then the only thing Americans will suffer from is devaluation.

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