Congress wants more tribute from Wall Street
Our friends in DC are (gasp!) engaging in a little political opportunism...
Commenting on the decision of Congress to provide $700b of bailout funds to Wall Street, Senator Barbara Boxer (CA-D) said "to avert a financial collapse, taxpayers saved ‘too big to fail’ companies. It is outrageous that these companies are now doling out millions of dollars in bonuses while the rest of America feels the pain of their reckless decisions."
For one thing, imposing a special "banker tax" on bonuses paid last year (in 2009) raises legal questions about ex-post-facto laws.
Secondly, what's really outrageous here Babs is that Congress provided the money to the financial firms at all, not the fact that Wall Street is (yawn) paying large bonuses.
I mean, let's face it, the bailout was undertaken with pretend money, created out of thin air by the Fed. Let's not act like federal spending was slashed to accommodate the bailout, or that anyones taxes were actually increased to facilitate the bailout.
Enough with the mock outrage from our fine Senators. Congress was even more guilty and complicit than Wall Street in creating the financial maelstrom we're still dealing with, and it's simply gamesmanship and a desperate attempt to create a fall-guy (or guys) for them to pretend otherwise.
Commenting on the decision of Congress to provide $700b of bailout funds to Wall Street, Senator Barbara Boxer (CA-D) said "to avert a financial collapse, taxpayers saved ‘too big to fail’ companies. It is outrageous that these companies are now doling out millions of dollars in bonuses while the rest of America feels the pain of their reckless decisions."
For one thing, imposing a special "banker tax" on bonuses paid last year (in 2009) raises legal questions about ex-post-facto laws.
Secondly, what's really outrageous here Babs is that Congress provided the money to the financial firms at all, not the fact that Wall Street is (yawn) paying large bonuses.
I mean, let's face it, the bailout was undertaken with pretend money, created out of thin air by the Fed. Let's not act like federal spending was slashed to accommodate the bailout, or that anyones taxes were actually increased to facilitate the bailout.
Enough with the mock outrage from our fine Senators. Congress was even more guilty and complicit than Wall Street in creating the financial maelstrom we're still dealing with, and it's simply gamesmanship and a desperate attempt to create a fall-guy (or guys) for them to pretend otherwise.
posted by Tom at
9:48 PM
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