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Tea Party To Protest Government's Financial Actions May Get Lawmakers' Attention

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By LEN TRIA

Uncommon Sense

Published: March 29, 2009

It is absolutely unbelievable how dumb the Obama administration thinks the American public is. They put forth a plan to buy the "toxic assets" of banks, which they now call "legacy assets," and try to convince us that this will be done by the private sector.

They must think we are in some sort of hallucinogenic stupor and will not read or listen to people who are smarter than the average government bureaucrat.

To begin with, the plan calls for the government to loan money to the so-called private sector so they can buy the "toxic assets" and then the private sector can overpay for the "toxic assets" because the government will loan them the money. If the government doesn't find willing buyers, the government, which loaned them the money, will cover any losses that the private sector folks incur.

Do you get it yet?

This is a-not-so clever way of the government bailing out the banks with the toxic assets and then saying they saved the banks.

However, if by chance there are any profits, the private sector will get to keep the money and the taxpayer will have paid for it all. This plan from the same bunch of rascals that gave us the AIG fiasco when it was in the legislation to safeguard the AIG bonuses. Then they suddenly became indignant and violate the Constitution, art. 1 sec. 9, by passing an ex post facto law taxing the bonuses at 90 percent. We saw and heard Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., first say he didn't know how the language got into the bill and the next day admit he put it in as a result of someone at the Treasury asking it be done.

How in the world can we have any faith in a government that commits such breeches of trust with its constituents? Then to make matters worse, the same people create such an uproar they stir up the malcontents of this country, led by ACORN et al, to demonstrate at the private houses of those who received the bonuses Congress had approved.

That is unconscionable, hypocritical and downright dangerous in these United States.

This may be OK for a Third-World dictatorship but unacceptable in the United States of America. Do we or do we not have a Constitution? Are we a country of laws? Are we a republic governed by a constitution or a republic ruled by hypocrites? The answer must be the latter because the same people passed legislation that they did not read; that by any measure is malfeasance or at least misfeasance by public officials.

The public had better wake up and start paying attention because if the government can seize financial institutions and now the Secretary of the Treasury is asking for even more power to seize private companies and regulate their compensation, it looks like the beginning of the nationalization of our private sector.

Just an aside: While all this is happening, the president sees fit to hold a cocktail party at the White House serving $100 a pound Japanese beef and who knows what other expensive goodies. But remember, Bush 41 didn't know about bar codes at the supermarket and was therefore out of touch with the American people. But cocktail parties are OK while unemployment soars and the economy is in free fall.

Maybe Nero wasn't such a bad guy after all.

It is interesting to note several members of the Fourth Estate who regarded President Barack Obama as the one who could save this country have now begun to write not-so flattering columns questioning the leadership and ability of the president and his policies.

Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman flatly came out and said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's plan will fail. That is a pretty strong condemnation by one of the former believers who is beginning to have doubts about the administration's ability.

Couple that with editorials and similar negative comments from others in the media and one can assume that doubts have now entered the minds of the most strident believers. Perhaps this is good and will cause our lawmakers to pause and examine any proposed legislation with more scrutiny rather than rushing it through.

We are heading for an even bigger train wreck with some of the proposals such as cap and trade that will add hundreds of dollars to the average person's energy bill. As for businesses, it will be devastating and probably cause an even bigger exodus of our remaining industry.

We need to let our government know we are not happy with their actions and join a tea party demonstration to get their attention. It worked once before, and maybe it could work again.

Len Tria, a former Hernando County commissioner, lives in Spring Hill.

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