Illinois
Evan Bayh of Indiana
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Harry Reid of Nevada
Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
Charles Schumer of New York
Byron Dorgan of North Dakota
Ron Wyden of Oregon
Patrick Leahy of Vermont
Patty Murray of Washington
Russell Feingold of Wisconsin
And here are the so-called moderate House Democrats who cave in to pressure, voting time and again to pass ultraliberal programs. It’s time to make them an endangered species!
----
PERCENTAGE OF TIME THEY VOTED ALONG WITH PARTY LEADERS
----
At www.dickmorris.com, we’ll be tracking how Obama’s program fares in Congress—and we’ll be asking supporters to direct their comments, letters, petitions, and donations at specific targets to stop this congressional move to the left. Log on and get involved!
2
THE BANK BAILOUT THAT BOMBED
As a result of massive government intervention and huge outlays of taxpayer money, the major banks and financial institutions are still afloat. But they might as well be dead as far as the economy is concerned. They’ve become floating mausoleums, closed to outsiders, making few if any loans, and trying hard to stay alive and out of trouble.
Their inability to lend is a catastrophe for the economy. And as you read this chapter, you’ll see that Barack Obama is likely to make things worse by using the current crisis as an excuse to nationalize the banks—the linchpin of his plan for a socialist economy.
The crisis began in March 2008, when Bear Stearns, the brokerage house that had pioneered the securitization of mortgages, failed. Uncle Sam stepped in, injected capital, and forced it into a marriage with J.P. Morgan Chase. On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers failed, and in a fit of free-market bravado, the Bush administration let it go into bankruptcy. Chaos and panic gripped the financial markets. After that, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and the Bush administration resolved not to permit any more catastrophes.
In September and October 2008, we learned that more and more of America’s leading financial institutions were insolvent and faced imminent collapse. All of the big banks, brokerage houses, and insurance companies tottered on the brink of bankruptcy so Bush pumped in money.
So twenty financial institutions divided up most of the initial $350 billion of government spending under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). By March 2009, almost $700 billion had been spent. As of this writing, 495 banks and other financial institutions have received money; they are now subject to the regulations the government will impose on them.
But the media’s relentless focus on the major TARP recipients has obscured one important fact: that almost every U.S. bank is on the dole. It’s sobering but true: most banks in America have their hands in this particular till.
Here’s the list of the main welfare recipients. For a full list, go to Appendix A. Check to see if your bank is on the list. We think you ought to know, don’t you?
THE TOP TWENTY PANHANDLERS IN AMERICA
Main recipients of TARP money as of March 2009
----
Source: http://www.propublica.org/special/show-me-the-tarp-money.
----
Even when banks want to give back the TARP money to escape federal regulation, they’re finding that the Treasury discourages them. Washington wants to pass out the money as broadly as possible so that it can use the funds as a lever to control the banks.
TARP stopped any institution from disappearing beneath the waves, but it has done nothing to restore consumer lending and liquidity in our economy. In the wake of the massive TARP spending, the banks have been saved, but our economy has not. The U.S. financial system is like a patient in ICU whose surgery went well but who may die anyway.
TARP may have forestalled bank bankruptcies, but the fact is that the American people still can’t get loans. In the first few months of 2009, the twenty largest banks to get government funds not only failed
Evan Bayh of Indiana
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Harry Reid of Nevada
Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
Charles Schumer of New York
Byron Dorgan of North Dakota
Ron Wyden of Oregon
Patrick Leahy of Vermont
Patty Murray of Washington
Russell Feingold of Wisconsin
And here are the so-called moderate House Democrats who cave in to pressure, voting time and again to pass ultraliberal programs. It’s time to make them an endangered species!
----
PERCENTAGE OF TIME THEY VOTED ALONG WITH PARTY LEADERS
----
At www.dickmorris.com, we’ll be tracking how Obama’s program fares in Congress—and we’ll be asking supporters to direct their comments, letters, petitions, and donations at specific targets to stop this congressional move to the left. Log on and get involved!
2
THE BANK BAILOUT THAT BOMBED
As a result of massive government intervention and huge outlays of taxpayer money, the major banks and financial institutions are still afloat. But they might as well be dead as far as the economy is concerned. They’ve become floating mausoleums, closed to outsiders, making few if any loans, and trying hard to stay alive and out of trouble.
Their inability to lend is a catastrophe for the economy. And as you read this chapter, you’ll see that Barack Obama is likely to make things worse by using the current crisis as an excuse to nationalize the banks—the linchpin of his plan for a socialist economy.
The crisis began in March 2008, when Bear Stearns, the brokerage house that had pioneered the securitization of mortgages, failed. Uncle Sam stepped in, injected capital, and forced it into a marriage with J.P. Morgan Chase. On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers failed, and in a fit of free-market bravado, the Bush administration let it go into bankruptcy. Chaos and panic gripped the financial markets. After that, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and the Bush administration resolved not to permit any more catastrophes.
In September and October 2008, we learned that more and more of America’s leading financial institutions were insolvent and faced imminent collapse. All of the big banks, brokerage houses, and insurance companies tottered on the brink of bankruptcy so Bush pumped in money.
So twenty financial institutions divided up most of the initial $350 billion of government spending under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). By March 2009, almost $700 billion had been spent. As of this writing, 495 banks and other financial institutions have received money; they are now subject to the regulations the government will impose on them.
But the media’s relentless focus on the major TARP recipients has obscured one important fact: that almost every U.S. bank is on the dole. It’s sobering but true: most banks in America have their hands in this particular till.
Here’s the list of the main welfare recipients. For a full list, go to Appendix A. Check to see if your bank is on the list. We think you ought to know, don’t you?
THE TOP TWENTY PANHANDLERS IN AMERICA
Main recipients of TARP money as of March 2009
----
Source: http://www.propublica.org/special/show-me-the-tarp-money.
----
Even when banks want to give back the TARP money to escape federal regulation, they’re finding that the Treasury discourages them. Washington wants to pass out the money as broadly as possible so that it can use the funds as a lever to control the banks.
TARP stopped any institution from disappearing beneath the waves, but it has done nothing to restore consumer lending and liquidity in our economy. In the wake of the massive TARP spending, the banks have been saved, but our economy has not. The U.S. financial system is like a patient in ICU whose surgery went well but who may die anyway.
TARP may have forestalled bank bankruptcies, but the fact is that the American people still can’t get loans. In the first few months of 2009, the twenty largest banks to get government funds not only failed
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