I Need An Attorney!!!

No matter who wins this election, the American people are in for it.  Neither candidate can truly claim that taxes will be reduced.  How can the Treasury borrow $700 billion from American taxpayers without a subsequent raise in taxes?  

Under what law, what power, what authority can Congress take this money and hand it to the very people who have screwed this up to begin with?  

I would like to hear from a tax attorney who is willing to file a class action suit against each and every member of Congress who voted for this, pro bono of course.  Every American should be outraged that the treasury is being emptied by those currently in power.  

The Founding Fathers rightly worried that taxes would lead to corruption in government.  

Hank Paulson is head of the US TReasury Department.  His actions have consistently favored the rich and blamed the current economic woes on social security, medical programs, and mortgage loans to those who could not afford them.  Fingers pointed directly at the middle class.  Yet Paulson, and Congress, were live wolves on a sheep to eliminate the estate tax on all but the richest Americans.  

How about reducing tax shelters, tax loopholes, off shore accounts, and strengthen Sarbanes-Oxley?  Nope, instead he and the administration push through $700 billion to buy bad debt from all of Paulson's buddies.  He has claimed that the banks will probably over inflate the value of their holdings, then sell them at over inflated prices.  Won't this bring us right back to where we started?  Then he and the administration will come calling again for more dollars. Only this time it will be the Democrats who get blamed.  And around and around we go, where it stops nobody knows!

Happy Sunday!

The Reverse

I am curious:  What was in the new version of the "bailout" that caused members of the House of Representatives to change their vote practically overnight?  I think American taxpayers are owed an explanation by their representatives, especially those who voted NO then retreated and voted YES.  I am sure they will claim that they did not understand the implication of voting NO.  That's not good enough.  And when the next bailout rolls around they will claim they voted NO, leaving out the fact that they reversed their position and later voted YES.  That's not good enough.  I would also very much like to know what the limitation is on the salary of any CEO of any company seeking funds from the Treasury bailout.  I have yet to see this information.  Anyone?

Get To Know Andrew Clements

Here is a tip for parents.  Get your kids to read ANYTHING by Andrew Clements.  As an educator with over 32 years of experience, I honestly believe that you and your children will not only enjoy his books, but you will appreciate the lessons learned.

Favorites:

No Talking

The Landry News

Frindle

The Report Card

Clements is able to not only convey a message of understanding to children, but also for adults to remember what it is like to be a child.

The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

The "Bailout" should rightly be called "The Robbery."

From the New York Times:

** "Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout 
of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to 
profit from it.
**"Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled 
investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.
**"At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all 
the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial 
institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of 
dollars a year in fees.
**"Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad 
assets of financial institutions."

Treasury Secretary Paulson has admitted that the $700 billion figure was pulled out of his head!

Congressmen and Senators admit they don't know how the $700 billion amount was determined.

During TV interviews, which were seen by millions of Americans, Congressmen of BOTH PARTIES admitted that they thought the bill would pass and if they had known it would NOT then they would have voted for it.In other words, they voted against it merely to go on record that they voted NO!! These people are swine and should be removed from office.

We have been told that failed mortgages are at the core of the bailout. The problem is that the number one issue with American families is NOT their mortgage payments. Underlying the the inability to maintain mortgage payments is the inability to maintain health care costs. That is the REAL reason we Americans are in such a financial bind.

This bailout will NOT help even one American pay for health coverage.

This bailout will NOT help Americans pay for gas ot to heat their homes.

This bailout will help the robber barons who control Wall Street.  

The same scare tactics that put us in Iraq are being used to scare us into thinking the sky will fall if we don't buy the bailout.  

Giving $700 billion of American taxpayers money to the same people who caused this mess in the first place is a financial disaster that our children will be stuck with for years to come.  What will they do when the money dries up? 

This is an attempt by the outgoing administration to grab as much from the US Treasury as they can before next January.  Lies and deception have been their main weapon for the last eight years. I don't know about you, but I've had quite enough of the Republicans and the Democrats who have stolen our country.  But since the Republicans have had the White House for 8 years, it's time for a change.

Sarah Six-Pack

"Oh, I think they're just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It's time that a normal Joe Six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that's kind of taken some people off guard, and they're out of sorts, and they're ticked off about it."

Now let's think about what Sarah Palin is saying.

First, Joe Six-pack.  Now I think that the office of VP should be occupied by someone educated, informed and decidedly NOT Joe Six-pack.  It is insulting to all Americans to think that just anyone can take on the responsibilities of being VP.  

Second, it's true that some people are taken off guard.  John McCain is 72 years old.  The VP should be ready at any time to become president.  Yes, I am taken off guard to think that this woman, who can not name one newspaper that she reads, can not name one Supreme Court case, does not know who or what Hamas is, has no knowledge of what the intention of the bailout is, could actually be not only VP but potentially president.

Third, what exactly does she mean by "out of sorts?"  And "ticked off."  Now just from the point of the average American, this is not the type of language I would expect someone trying to become VP to actually use. Maybe she's trying to be downhome in some way, but to me it appears that she is unable to speak intelligently and formally. 

The debate with Joe Biden should be quite interesting.  He should just let her talk.  But Biden's biggest problem is he can't let anyone else talk.  If he shuts up long enough he might just be the emcee of a new comedy show starring Sarah Palin as...Sarah Palin.

Uh, Sarah, Can You Just Answer the QUESTION?

Asked what newspapers and magazines she reads, Palin - a journalism major in college - could not name one publication.

"I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media," she said at first. Couric responded, "What, specifically?"

"Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years."

"Can you name a few?"

"I have a vast variety of source where we get our news," Palin said. "Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, 'wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?' Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America."

Suggestion for a follow up question, "Hey, numbnuts, NAME ONE!  GET IT?"

Or how about, "Do you read the Huffington Post?"

Sarah: "Uh, oh, yes, sure, every day." Couris, "Oh REALLY!"

Doing a little math.

Just doing a little math:

$700,000,000,000 

If you spent $1 million a day, it would take you 1917 YEARS to spend $700 billion!

If your house is worth $230,000, you could buy 2,800,000 of them with $700 billion.

Why would anyone, especially the Fed, give a blank check for this much money to exactly the same people who got us here in the first place?  They need to think this thing through and come up with a plan. Not so fast guys.  Develop a plan that makes sense and let the American people know what the plan is before you do anything.  The result of rushing this through could be far worse than what we might face without it.