Bailout just digs the hole deeper for taxpayers

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Sep 27, 2008

Most Americans are angry and resentful about the Bush administration's demand that Congress make available $700 billion of their money to bail out Wall Street firms that made poor investments in acts of greed designed to increase the $25 million annual salaries of the chief executive officers.

Count me in.

President Bush used his October 2002 war resolution deception to get Congress to act quickly, bringing his demand for immediate action just before elections when Congress members were anxious to get home and weren't thinking too well anyway.

Both the 2002 demand and this demand have been backed up by threats of disaster if Congress doesn't act fully and quickly. The 2002 resolution that gave Bush congressional approval to make war was backed up in part by the intelligence testimony of Curveball, a mysterious presence in Germany who had seen the mobile chemical and germ warfare labs of Saddam Hussein.

Similarly, this crisis, which has been around at least since July, demands immediate action based on the testimony of two non- elected officials, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke.

Eventually members of Congress, following the president's appeal to the American people and pressed for time, will once again fall in line like lemmings and march further into the sea of American debt, which they have already increased by more than $300 billion to rescue mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

But much more distressing is that this is likely only Act One of a huge tragedy that has resulted from the reckless administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and his feckless imitator, Bush 43.

It should have been obvious to anyone with a scintilla of good sense that the annual deficits and national debt run up by these two presidents and their fellow supply-side idiots and greedy movement conservatives would have to be paid someday, either by inflated money or real money. But apparently not.

Since 1971, the American dollar has been the international currency based only on confidence in the American financial system. By 1983, when Reagan pushed through a huge deficit budget that featured tax cuts for the rich and huge military expenditures, the dollar has been going backward until it is losing confidence and value. Its value has nose-dived against the euro, Canadian dollar and other currencies.

The prices you pay for gasoline are about half due to the loss of value of the dollar. And oil exporting nations are beginning to demand currency other than American dollars for their oil. In other words, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Our national debt was less than $1 trillion when Reagan became president. When Bush leaves in four months it will be more than $11 trillion, or about $37,000 for every man, woman and child. Do you have $148,000 to back up the debt for your family of four contracted in your name by Republican presidents?

Since President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the two parties have had widely divergent political and economic philosophies. The Republicans have socked it to the middle class and poor in the interest of the wealthy who are supposed to bring all good things to all good people by spending their excessive riches. You know, by buying seven homes.

Democrats have believed a well-educated, productive middle class is the mark of good government and national strength. Democratic principles brought great prosperity from 1945 to 1970.

But things got crazy in the 1980s when Republicans initiated economic theories that were more matters of faith and greed than empirical observation. Sensible capitalism yielded to social Darwinism, and for more than a quarter of century the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer, and our nation has floundered.

It will take the American people a long time to dig out of this hole. Presumably, unclogging the capital markets is the turning of the first spade.

We'll see.

Bill Roy is a retired physician and former member of Congress. He has a law degree and lives in Topeka. He may be reached at wirroy@aol.com.