by Deb Cupples | Our nation's leaders have spent a lot of money helping big companies, some of whose executives had recklessly driven those companies into a ditch. Here's the outside total so far, based only on the bailout efforts that came off the top of my head:
| Company | Amount Committed |
| AIG | $150 billion |
| Auto Industry | $25 billion |
| Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac | $200 billion |
| Multiple Companies | up to $700 billion |
| Total | up to $1.075 trillion |
Apparently, while we ordinary folks watched our government's right hand (Congress) squabble over the $700 billion bailout plan some weeks back, the left hand (Bush Administration) was "quietly" making $140 billion available to various financial institutions. The Washington Post reports:
"The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hill as Congress battled over the Bush administration's request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.
"But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.
"The sweeping change to two decades of tax policy escaped the notice of lawmakers for several days, as they remained consumed with the controversial bailout bill. When they found out, some legislators were furious.
"Some congressional staff members have privately concluded that the notice was illegal. But they have worried that saying so publicly could unravel several recent bank mergers made possible by the change and send the economy into an even deeper tailspin." (WaPo)
Adding the (up to) $140 billion to the bailout total from the table above (up to $1.075 trillion), we get a new total of $1.2 trillion. (or $1,200,000,000,000).
That's about one-third of our nation's entire annual budget. That's about one-tenth of our national debt, which is now at about $10.6 trillion -- up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office.
That's right: our national debt nearly doubled under a self-styled "conservative" president, who -- during most of his years in the White House -- enjoyed control of Congress by self-styled "conservatives."
Purportedly seeking to unfreeze credit markets and save jobs, that same President has presided over the funneling of possibly more than $1 trillion to private companies -- without legally requiring said companies to actually spend the money on unfreezing the credit markets or creating jobs.
I can only imagine what the results will be.
Other Buck Naked Politics Posts:
* Cutting Executive Pay Would Save Jobs
* Lehman Execs Redistribute Shareholder Wealth (to Themselves)
* AIG Execs Redistribute Shareholder Wealth (to Themselves)
* Execs Made Millions While Driving Companies into Ditch
* Are Bailout Funds Being Misused?
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