In a blogger conference call yesterday Sen. Lamar Alexander explained his “Auto Stock for Every Taxpayer” plan that seeks, within a year of GM’s emergence from bankruptcy, to distribute the GM stock held by the government to the 120 million individuals who pay taxes. His aim, he explained, is to end the “political meddling” from Washington and also give GM a Green Bay Packer base of “interested fans.” He also announced he’ll be passing “a couple of times a week” Car Czar Award for political interference. The first winner: Rep. Barney Frank, who called up GM to prevent a warehouse closing in his state. (“There will be a never-ending supply of stories and I’ll have to pick and choose who to honor,” he explained in deadpan fashion.)
I asked about his reaction to the Supreme Court’s lifting of its stay on the Chrysler bankruptcy. He replied, “Private property and the rule of law are essential to the American character. And we have damaged both. Without both private property and the rule of law our system won’t function.” Later in the call he sounded a theme I expect we will hear more of from those trying to slow down the Obama juggernaut. He described “a troubling pattern of government take-overs” and then proceeded to tick them off: from banks to insurance firms to student loans to pay czars to car companies. And he warned: next up is healthcare.
What reaction has he gotten to his stock give-back plan from his Democratic colleagues? Why, they’ve been very quiet, he observed. Indeed, the Beltway politicians and bureaucrats are having way too much fun designing the cars of the future and telling the companies where to put their plants. Why stop now?
Jennifer Rubin has been on a roll, in my opinion, since the day the Obamabudget was announced, but the last sentence in the top post couldn’t be more wrong, in my opinion. The vigor and verge in Ms Rubin’s writing already proves that there is great joy in watching the whole experiment implode, if not in observing the innocent and not-entirely-innocent bystanders getting sucked in by the vortex. If only we could be confident that the experiment really is imploding, and that something better, even a healthy absence of bad policy, would soon be taking its place.
(verge = verve)
Well, public housing has been a roaring success, for what, 70 years? And we all know what a success public education has become as the federal government has gradually increased its role for the past 40 years. VA hospitals are, of course, the gold standard of medical care and innovation. The Post Office is regularly championed as the most effective and efficient government agency. Have you visited a post office recently to experience this efficiency? The mortgage mess with Fan and Fred is just the tip of the iceberg in socializing the cost of subsidizing interest-group politics.
Just wait to see what the government does to health care and energy.
Obama understands no restraint or limitation on government action.
As some fool offered up, here, the other day–the fact that the government screwed-up a relatively minuscule $165 million must mean they’re getting 99.99% correct. With such a low bar, there’s nothing the government should be restrained from “improving” upon.
Turbo Tax Tim knew about the bonus payments on March 3. Captain Ed an Hot Air has the video from CSPAN:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/20/video-congress-geithner-knew-about-bonuses-on-march-3rd/
Typically, JR looks at a situation and takes away exactly the opposite lesson learned by the rest of America. To everyone not on the crazy right fringe, this episode proves is that we need more regulation, more restrictions on Wall Street. We cannot leave these people with no restraints but the free market. The lesson is that unbridled capitalism results in huge booms and busts, with greedy executives profiting at the expense of every other American. They will gladly sack their own companies and leave them, along with our economy, in ruins. if it means that they get theirs This truly is the death of Reagan deregulation for all time.
Nice to see that Abu Ismail has finally made it to the middle of the nineteenth century.
The fundamental problem is that Obama is simply incompetent at his job. His is in way over his head, and the rest of us are threatened with drowning while he jets around to ball games and tv appearances on Air Force One.
And now after fanning the flames the president seems worried by the bonfire. He told Jay Leno….
Yes, this is what I want from my president, that when things go wrong and people get really angry, partly because Obama stoked that anger, that he will jet over to Burbank, California and talk it over with Jay Leno on TV.
I don’t care which way you voted in 2008; this can’t be right.
Leno to head Treasury?
#5,
Right on, smart one! Exactly what we need – far more government intrusion. It is a given, after all, that Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank can design, build and market any product better than those evil, unfettered capitalists that do it today. In particular, we should have them set the salaries in all industries, since they do it so very well. After all, any money paid to any employee is taken right out of profits and, therefore, deprives the congress of corporate taxes it could spend so wisely on the public good. (Except, of course, for the salaries of those making over $250K, which must be augmented so Obama can take it all away.)
Just think how much better off we would be if we had taken the advice of wise intellectuals like yourself and spent the last century in a sequence of government-designed five-year plans rather than the disorganized, haphazard capitalism we were forced to endure. Just think of the poor! Why, they would probably be as well off as the poor are today in those countries that chose government regulation over “unbridled capitalism” with its “greedy executives.
One cries in sorrow at the economic opportunities we have missed. Imagine, we foolishly deprived ourselves of Obama’s enlightened leadership for the first forty-some years of his life!
“Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) called the tax measure a ‘constitutionally questionable bill to paper over’ changes supported by Democrats that he said made the bonuses possible.”
I think this pretty much captures the lunacy in Washington. The “changes supported by Democrats that [Pence] said made the bonuses possible” were made because without them, the TARP law would have been, duh, “a constitutionally questionable bill.” So, it seems that Mr. Pence is unhappy that the Dems didn’t make the TARP law unconsitutional in the first place, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to give them another bite at the apple if it deprives him of the chance to blame them for obeying the Constitution when they had the chance.
If the Senate passes this pogrom of a bill, I will to say to representatives and senators alike, “a pox on both your houses.” Just kidding. I’m already saying it.
Materialist–Careful what you wish for. Congress created the boondoggle that is/was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we know how that turned out.
The whole concept of capitalism just implies unregulated behavior, economic activity without seatbelts in a gas guzzling convertible going 90 mph down a two-lane highway. Can’t have that. Innocents could get hurt. Somebody has to enforce that speed limit, make sure everybody has their seatbelts fastened, discourage the purchase of those wasteful trophy cars. Then everything will be just fine.