Gay Conservative

Today, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson announced the biggest government bailout of all, and it’s finally gotten on my last nerve.  Bush was great after 9/11, but he’s since lost any and all respect I had for him as a leader.  If his doing the sword dance with the Saudi royals wasn’t enough, he started approving billion-dollar bailouts direct from John Q. Taxpayer last summer.

First, it was only supposed to be a bailout for those facing foreclosure on the homes they’d spent too much money on (after they cashed out the enormous equity during the housing craze without thinking it might bite them in the ass later on).  It was only supposed to help individuals even though the vast majority of them deserved to lose their homes.  There’s no such thing as a temporary government program, though.  We should’ve known it would keep going like this. 

Next came Countrywide Home Loans.  They got a huge bailout.  (Of course they would have, they gave Democrat Chris Dodd VIP-rate mortgages, a practice completely illegal according to the Fair Lending Act.)  THEN, the government declared Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “insolvent” and started talking about bailing them out, too.  Wachovia posted a nearly $9 million loss, and IndyMac drowned in the subprime crisis it helped create.  Chase had to bail out Bear Stearns, and now we’ve had Bank of America bail out Merill Lynch while Lehman Bros. have also gone belly-up and declared bankruptcy.  As if that wasn’t enough, AIG started to give hints that it was about to go under, so our government decided to bail them out, too–to the tune of around $85 billion smackers.

NOW, both Obama AND McCain support a $25 billion bailout for automakers GM, Chrysler and Ford.  That’s ostensibly to help the companies retool their factories to start building cleaner, more fuel-efficient vehicles for America (since, God knows, Americans haven’t figured out what the Japanese already have).  The fact of the matter is that if they can’t do it on their own, they should face their own troubles.  I love America and I own a Ford–despite the fact that it guzzles gas, I love it–but the government can’t be expected to keep bailing everyone out.  So far there’s been an excuse for everything.

This is aside from Obama’s close involvement with Fanny/Freddie, you know.  Two of his closest advisors are the heads of those two companies.  And he’s been using them for business for years.

Bush could put his foot down and give the ol’ Texan saying, “not only no, but HELL no!”  He won’t, though.  God knows why.  I may like his charming personality, but as a leader, he’s just proven himself nearly impotent.  The federal government never should have gotten involved in this brouhaha to begin with.