Bailouts And Stimulus

President Bush and his Treasury Sectary Paulson asked congress to pass a bail out package for Wall Street financial institutions in the amount of $700 billion.  Congress did so, Bush signed the bill and his administration gave out $350 billion with no strings attached.  The second $350 billion was turned over to President Obama to use.

 

President Obama urged congress to pass a stimulus package and congress did so to the tune of $787 billion and Obama signed the bill.  Every one knows the reasons given by Bush and Obama for the legislation.  There has been much pro and con on both pieces of legislation concerning taxpayers money being used for the purpose stated.  The American people have a right to be concerned and should insist that safeguards be attached to protect their tax investments.

 

There is hope for the people in all of this.  The government bailed out Chrysler and Mexico a number of years ago with tax payers money and the money was repaid with interest.  So the government does know how to safeguard the taxpayers investment.  There were voices at that time that said Chrysler and Mexico would never repay the money and they were wrong.

 

The opposite happened concerning the Savings and Loan crisis in the 80's during the Reagan administration.  That meltdown was different and resulted in the closure of hundreds of S&L and cost the taxpayers over $150 billion which has never been recovered. 

 

In my judgement the biggest problem with the two expenditures is it will add $1.4 trillion to the deficit and national debt on top of the 8 years of record deficits and debt by the Bush administration.  I do have confidence that the Obama administration will make deficit reduction a priority in line with bringing back the economy and creating jobs.  Obama has already  made the commitment.  Bush never made a commitment to balance the federal budget  That is a huge difference.  The American people need to hold President Obama and congress responsible for returning the government to balance budgets.  It was accomplished before after 12 straight years of deficit spending and debt by Reagan and Bush 41 and it must be accomplished again.