Yet Another Power Grab

They're trying to bill it as "financial reform," but what the Democrats' financial overhaul amounts to is yet another power grab by the federal government.

According to Senator Chris Dodd (D-Ct), "This is about as important as it gets, because it deals with every single aspect of our lives."  Dodd was also quoted as saying "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done."

So let me get this straight: Chris Dodd, one of the architects of our current recession, is pushing a bill giving the US government unconstitutional oversight authority...and he doesn't even know what is in the bill?  Dodd was, after all, in bed with Fannie May and Freddie Mac and was largely responsible for their failure, all the while insisting that Fannie and Freddie were healthy and being properly regulated.  The very idea that Dodd is still has any kind of a hand in regulating the US financial sector is appalling.

This is typical of the Democrats: every crisis is an opportunity to take more and more power away from the American people and put it in the hands of the federal government.  The financial crisis has already led to the takeover of GM and AIG, and it seems that every time a major business starts showing some signs that it's in any kind of trouble, it is immediately demonized by the Democrats, who automatically assume that the federal government has to step in to save them, all the while completely ignoring the role that government interventionism played in their demise.

It's as if the Democrats in Congress, Chris Dodd especially, are completely blind to their part in the current recession.

The very idea that the American people should have this kind of legislation hefted upon us by a buffoon like Chris Dodd is ridiculous, at best.  Dodd is a joke - a lame-duck Senator who finally realized how much of a failure he is, so he decided not to run for re-election.  This, it seems, is his last-gasp effort to cement his legacy as an enemy to the American way of life and to do as much damage to American freedom and the US economy as possible.

What's more, the Democrats are continuing their trend of putting forward legislation that would curtail American freedoms without even knowing what is in the bill.  Dodd's "no one will know until it's in place" quote is eerily reminiscent of Nancy Pelosi saying "we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it" of the health care bill that passed earlier this year...and from the looks of things, this bill could be just has harmful to American freedom as the health care takeover.

In the ultimate irony, if the bill passes, President Obama plans to sign it on Independence Day.

***UPDATE ***

From President Obama, before departing for the G20 Summit:

Now, let me be clear.  Our economic growth and prosperity depend on a strong, robust financial sector, and I will continue to do what I can to foster and support a dynamic private sector. But we've all seen what happens when there’s inadequate oversight and insufficient transparency on Wall Street.

The reforms making their way through Congress will hold Wall Street accountable so we can help prevent another financial crisis like the one that we’re still recovering from. 

We’ll put in place the toughest consumer financial protections in our history, while creating an independent agency to enforce them.  Through this agency, we’ll combine under one roof the consumer protection functions that currently are divided among half a dozen different agencies.  Now there will be one agency whose sole job will be to look out for you.

President Obama seems to love creating his so-called "independent agencies,"  especially when those agencies are beholden to and report to him.  The truth is that President Obama has no idea what is in this bill - it is enough for him to know that it will increase his power of the US economy and turn more American freedoms over to his control.

It seems that every time President Obama utters the words "let me be clear," he's getting ready to lie to the nation - he hasn't done anything to "foster and support a dynamic private sector," and this bill won't do anything to help that.

Throwing Cash Down The Rabbit Hole

President Obama has formally asked Congressional Democrats for another stimulus bill.

That's right - after the first stimulus proved to be a complete failure, the president now wants to throw away another $50 billion of the taxpayers' money.

Why do we need another stimulus bill?  The first one didn't work, why should we assume that a second stimulus will succeed where the first failed?

President Obama pledged to the American people that his first stimulus, which totaled over $700 billion, would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.  Not long after the bill was passed, unemployment shot up to ten percent, and is now hovering around 9.7 percent - a drop of 0.2 percent primarily due to temporary hiring and manipulation by the US Census Bureau.

The President and Congressional Democrats told us the first stimulus was a pork-free bill, but that's only because the entire bill consisted of nothing but each Congressman's pet projects - a rather transparent tactic for a Congress that pledged to end pork spending.

The real question behind this is, if $700 billion wasn't enough to stimulate the economy, how is another $50 billion going to help?  All the government can do with these stimulus bills is to artificially stimulate the economy - not only are they making people dependent on the government through increased government hiring, welfare programs and socialized health care, but now they're trying to make the entire economy dependent on government intervention.  It didn't work during the Great Depression, and if FDR couldn't pull it off, why should we trust Barack Obama?

By passing repeated stimulus bills, the president hopes to do two things: the first, of course, has to do with pure politics.  The November elections are approaching fast, and the scene looks bleak for liberal Democrats.  If President Obama starts pushing for another stimulus now, then there's a chance he'll be able to maneuver the process so that the money starts flowing before the election - and there are enough people out there who are interested in hand-outs that it could make a difference in November.  Of course, with more and more Americans increasingly aware of the wasteful spending going on in Washington, it could easily come back to bite the Democrats in a big way.

The other goal of repeated stimulus bills is to further prop up the US economy, and this goal could also come back to bite the Democrats.

Picture the US economy as a house with a crumbling foundation.  These stimulus bills are like balloons used to prop up the house as the crumbling foundation fails.  There are a few problems with this scheme, however: first off, the US government, was the one who took a jackhammer to the foundation in the first place, by over-regulating businesses even to the point of forcing banks to give home loans to people who couldn't afford the payments.  Second, the US government is blowing up the balloons with a limited air supply.  Our national debt is already so high that we can barely afford the interest payments, and as time goes on, we get closer and closer to having our national credit rating downgraded.  Eventually, the stimulus "balloons" will pop, and our economy will be worse off than it was before.

We cannot afford another stimulus, and we do not need another stimulus.  The US economy may not rebound suddenly; it takes time for an economy to recover fully, but it seems that the Democrats are looking for a quick fix, and in doing so, they are trying to put a band-aid on a shotgun blast.  It's not going to fix anything over the long run, and our nation will be worse off for their ignorance.






Reading suggestions for the President and Congress:

Why Sestak Matters

The press on the Sestak affair seems to have died down somewhat, but personally, I don't think the importance of this scandal could be overstated: This is Obama's Watergate.

Obama was elected on a platform of hope and change.  He promised to do away with the "failed policies of the past" and to fight to clean up corruption in Washington.  Instead, he has not only accelerated the failed policies of the Bush administration - out-of-control spending, but now it's plain to see that he has also brought Chicago to Washington, adding even more corruption to a city filled with liars, thieves and swindlers.

The Democrats have been selling this same bill of goods for far too long.  When Nancy Pelosi was sworn in, she promised to "drain the swamp."  She then proceeded to do absolutely nothing when thousands of dollars of bribe money was found in Congressman William Jefferson's (D-LA) freezer.  In fact, it seems that the only scandals Pelosi has the slightest interest in investigating are those involving Republicans.

Now we have a president who rose to prominence in a city known for corruption and machine politics - it only figures that he would bring the same tricks that got him to where he is to the White House.  The irony is that with Congressman Sestak's revelation that the Administration offered him a job in exchange for dropping out of his Senate race, more scandals have come to light.  Now it has come out that Obama's administration was similarly trying to influence Andrew Romanoff's Senate bid in Colorado.  There is even some unconfirmed speculation that President Obama may have been involved in the Blagojevich scandal, trying to facilitate a deal between Blagojevich and SEIU to get a union-friendly replacement into Obama's vacant Senate seat.

All of President Obama's lofty promises have turned out to be a lot of hot air.  The change he has brought has brought no hope to America.  He brings nothing new to the table - just a lot of lies, corruption, and more of the failed policies of the past.  Here in California, the primaries are coming up.  We can only hope the voters will usher in some real change - God knows our state, and our nation, could use it.