 Money for nothing?
Taxpayers:
Don't
Pay for Failure
By David Bloviator
Political
Editor WASHINGTON, D.C.
– Disgusted by the greed-driven collapse of America's once-vaunted
financial system, the tax-paying public is increasingly furious about
rewarding the architects of that disaster with public money. With the cost of the bailout now exceeding
$1,000,000,000,000 and no end in sight, those stuck with the tab for
decades of mismanagement of the American economy are rebelling over
paying a dime more to those who had their snouts and trotters
in the trough but couldn't be bothered to take the simple common-sense
steps necessary to keep the U.S. economic system from blowing itself to
bits.
This just in
out . . .
The whole barrel of manufactured outrage over the
bonuses paid to AIG
executives is nothing more than the Wall Street (and Washington)
version of Three-Card Monte: if
the suckers keep their eyes on the bonuses, they won't notice that
Uncle Schmuck had handed over almost a thousand times as much money (north
of $100,000,000,000, again with no end in sight) to those
sharpies who bought AIG's mortgage-security "insurance." Every
time the toxic mortgages – excuse us, "legacy assets,"
– crater further, or the hustlers deem
themselves "insecure" due to AIG's supposedly plummeting credit ratings
(notwithstanding the clear U.S. guarantee of AIG's obligations), they
get the right to glom on to another portion of the notional $1.6
trillion aggregate exposure, which is looking less notional and more
real every day. If you weren't distracted by all of
the shiny talking heads blathering about nickel and dime bonuses, you
might ask why our children are being forced to pay up forever on these
chiseling deals. The answer the suits would cough up
with a straight face: AIG's "insurance" deals are contracts.
And contracts are sacred, they'll piously intone. Really? Last
we looked, any insolvent debtor could reject unperformed
contracts merely by filing a bankruptcy petition. The
Government hasn't let AIG file bankruptcy, to avoid a replay of the
Lehman debacle, but does anyone think that
AIG's assets exceed its liabilities? (If so, why is a share
of AIG cheaper than a Big Mac?) Don't
all speak up at once. Of course the princes of
capitalism who
have trousered billions want
to milk what are, in the absence of Government life support,
clearly worthless
obligations as long as the U.S. Treasury lets them. We'd
like to think that the Treasury would wake up and realize there are
better uses for $13 billion than financing Goldman's bonus pool, and
tell the counterparties that the gravy train has pulled into South
Ferry.
It hasn't happened yet, but we're great believers in the
audacity of hope. – Samuel Insull
Financial Editor
Who are the greedy
incompetents who are the target of the most recent outcry?
You know them as the Bush Administration, abetted by their
ideological anti-regulatory soulmates in the U.S. Congress. Public anger has boiled over at the
revelation that former U.S. President George W. Bush is entitled to a
lush lifetime pension purportedly earned by failing to oversee the
excesses of Wall Street risk-loving robber barons whose highly
leveraged
shenanigans led to the simultaneous housing, stock market, mortgage,
and credit market crashes.
"Can you believe
that this
clown is entitled to several hundred thousand dollars a year for the
rest of his life, while millions have lost their job, their homes, and
their life savings?" said laid off autoworker Jay Gould, 54, of
Livonia, Michigan. Gould's
friend, unemployed contractor Ed Harriman said: "And that Paulson guy?
How much is he sucking from the public t**? And
Cheney? He must be getting a pantload from Uncle
Sucker." [He'd
tell you but then he'd have to kill you – Ed.] Public outrage has also been fanned by
the long-running make-work project housed under the Capitol
Dome.
Under this wasteful spending program, 535 otherwise
unemployable ham-and-eggers are paid a magnificent salary, plus health
insurance, lavish pensions, free parking, travel allowances, and
lifetime taxpayer-financed free gym privileges for squandering the
public purse. What has the
long-suffering public gotten for the untold millions it has dropped on
this gang of chiselers, which operates under the grandiloquent name of
the "United States Congress?" For
its years of capital support of the legislative branch, the taxpayers
received in return, in addition to the financial "China syndrome," a
trillion-dollar unnecessary war in Iraq, defeat in the war
that needed to be fought in Afghanistan, tax cuts for the rich paid for
with money borrowed from our grandchildren, and a boatload of
half-baked Flash Gordon weapons systems that either aren't needed or
can't work (and in many cases both). It's
no wonder that there's an increasingly loud public demand for Congress
to pay
back to the Treasury all the money they've squandered on paying
themselves lavish salaries and perks. "Free
parking for believing everything that came out of George Bush's mouth?
What's wrong with the Metro – it runs right to
their front door." groused Bill Estes of Houston, Texas. "They should pay us back for everything they
were paid since 2001," demanded Al Fall of Wyoming. Others argue that Congress should impose the
90% tax it proposed for AIG bonuses on themselves. "It's one
thing to reward legislators for performance, but they've been either
asleep as the switch or complicit in the deregulatory disaster of the
last ten years," said Andy Flastow of Lewisburg, Pa.
 Public
outrage at bloated payments has led to bus tours of the homes of
recipients of unwarranted largesse, including Dick Cheney's basement
rec room/interrogation chamber.
In recent days, however, some
have worried that the rush to take compensation away from the executive
and legislative stuffed shirts who got us into this mess
might send "a wrong signal." "If
we don't pay public officials, how can we attract individuals
of the caliber of Dick Cheney, Michael Brown, Tom Delay, Alcee
Hastings, or Rod Blagojevich?" asked long-term
Hill watcher Reb Jack Abramoff, also of Lewisburg, Pa. He predicted that if taxpayers succeed in their
efforts to "claw back" government salaries, the best public servants
would flee into more lucrative private sector opportunities, such as
roach extermination, hair styling, moose hunting, brush clearing,
horse racing, or murder for hire. Despite
the logical appeal of such arguments, public fury remains unabated.
Some are trying to cash in on the controversy by promoting
bus tours of the home of recipients of unearned Government largesse.
Already Sherm Adams of New Hampshire has organized trips to
taxpayer-financed monuments to wasteful spending such as George Bush's
Dallas mini-mansion, Ted Stevens' well-furnished Alaskan
vacation cabin, Dick Cheney's underground house of horrors, and Rod
Blagojevich's hair. | 
