Folks, we've got to step back and see the Bush/Paulson bailout package (and the accompanying bum's rush to try and get it pushed through without debate) for what it is: the latest in a long line of swindles put over on this country by the Bush Administration.
In short, BushCo is insisting that Congress pass a profoundly ill-advised bailout plan for the financial industry that provides a massive windfall to a deeply mismanaged sector of our nation's business community, while sticking taxpayers with the bill.
Coincidentally enough, this also adds the better part of a trillion extra dollars to our national debt, thus insuring that the next president has little or no money to work with to try and enact any substantial new policies.
And, as usual, the Bush Administration is using fear and panic to try and sell this scam to Congress.
There's not really a lot to ponder about this Bush/Paulson bailout plan. It gives at least $700 billion in free money to the financial industry via US government purchase of bad debt and assets from banks not just across the country, but around the world. The financial industry played their little Ponzi-esque game of hot potato, a lot of people got rich off of it, plenty of people got screwed, and now that the music stopped and the piper must be paid, they're insisting that the American taxpayer be the one to do the paying.
They get drunk and get busted on a DUI, and then they want us to do their time for them? Hell no.
So while it's tempting to try and get all granular and meta in our analysis of the "Mother Of All Bailouts", and the Democrats' game attempts at deck chair rearrangement as the ship goes down, let's not forget one very basic thing about this entire bailout plan.
It's a chunk of shit.
Okay, so maybe I'm in no danger whatsoever of having this little screed picked up by the NY Times with blunt language like that. I reckon I'll survive somehow. The important thing is that we all understand that the "MOAB" - no matter how much we may want to dissect it and try and analyze its component parts and see what's usable and what's not usable and endlessly dicker over what version of it might best be implemented - is a chunk of shit. And that's all it is. And Congress needs to shut it down. Hard.
I know, I know, "Oh, but we have to do SOMETHING!!" Well, the funny thing about that phrase is, it's the political geek's equivalent to the old joke about the last thing a drunken redneck says before he bites it. "Hey y'all, watch this!"
Any time we hear folks saying "Oh, but we have to do SOMETHING!" you can be positive that a "solution" is in the offing which will ultimately take a bad problem and make it infinitely worse. That panicked attitude after 9/11 resulted in some of the most odious, Constitution-shredding legislation this country had seen in decades. When we were assured that Saddam Hussein was ready and rarin' to go with nukes that could level an American city, everyone panicked and we got the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq, and the long-running smash hit "Bushie's War."
And on and on. And now we've got Paulson and company evidently telling Congress that the world is going to explode unless they pass the Bush/Paulson bailout package in full, immediately. It's the economic equivalent of the old "mushroom cloud" story we were told before the Iraq War, and once again BushCo is trying to play Congress like a bunch of barnyard rubes at the carnival.
We're being scammed again, folks. No two ways about it. There is nothing redeeming or worthwhile or even vaguely reasonable about the "MOAB", and we have to stop encouraging them by trying to go over the thing with a fine-toothed comb. Sure, we might be able to sift a kernel or three of corn out of this turd, but really wouldn't we be better off walking away and going to find an actual ear of corn?
If any of you still insist on trying to explain to me why we have to go with some version of the "MOAB" (because we have to do SOMETHING!) just remember the key phrase at the heart of the whole bill. Good ol' "Section 8", or as I like to call it, "The Klinger Clause."
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
In other words, pass this bill and give the Administration full autocracy in carrying out the provisions of that bill. Congress? Locked out of the process. The courts? Locked out. What government oversight agencies are left? Locked out.
Does anyone still not see this whole bailout package for the Bush Administration scam that it is? We've got to start treating it as exactly that, and so do the Democrats - especially Senator Obama. Because if they succumb to the artificial sense of urgency the Administration is trying to create here, and they pass some variation on the Bush/Paulson giveaway plan, we're not only stuck with a huge addition to our national debt, but also the next president will have virtually no money with which to try and fix any of what BushCo has broken over the past eight years.
There is no real upside to this "MOAB" for anyone besides the "golden parachute" set in the financial industry, and they're the ones who got themselves into this jam in the first place.
So, let's at least start calling this scheme what it is and stop trying to pretend that it's something that it's not. Because if we don't make enough noise here, nobody else is going to put pressure on our lawmakers to step away from this trap before they spring it and catch us all in it.