Classic Liberal Blog

It's easy to be in the giving mood when you're spending other peoples money, and Democrat Barney Frank is in the mood to give $4 trillion dollars of your grandchildren's money away to wealthy bankers!

Cool, isn't it?

Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank

To close out 2009, I decided to do something I bet no member of Congress has done -- actually read from cover to cover one of the pieces of sweeping legislation bouncing around Capitol Hill.

Hunkering down by the fire, I snuggled up with H.R. 4173, the financial-reform legislation passed earlier this month by the House of Representatives. The Senate has yet to pass its own reform plan. The baby of Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the House bill is meant to address everything from too-big-to-fail banks to asleep-at-the-switch credit-ratings companies to the protection of consumers from greedy lenders.

I quickly discovered why members of Congress rarely read legislation like this ... The reading was especially painful since this reform sausage is stuffed with more gristle than meat ...

-- It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for “no-more-bailouts” talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around. The size of the fund makes the bribes in the Senate’s health-care bill look minuscule.

-- The legislation does create a council of regulators to spot risks to the financial system and big financial firms. Unfortunately this group is made up of folks who missed the problems that led to the current crisis.

-- Don’t worry, this time regulators will have better tools. Six months after being created, the council will report to Congress on “whether setting up an electronic database” would be a help. Maybe they’ll even get to use that Internet thingy.

-- The bill also allows regulators to “prohibit any incentive-based payment arrangement.”

-- Since Congress isn’t cutting jobs, why not add a few more. The bill calls for more than a dozen agencies to create a position called “Director of Minority and Women Inclusion.” People in these new posts will be presidential appointees. I thought too-big-to-fail banks were the pressing issue. Turns out it’s diversity, and patronage.

-- Best of all, the bill contains a provision that, in the event of another government request for emergency aid to prop up the financial system, debate in Congress be limited to just 10 hours.

But wait, there's more!

Treasury to dole out $3.8 billion to GMAC

The U.S. is injecting another $3.8 billion into GMAC Financial Services to help cover mortgage losses, in a bailout that makes the government the majority owner of the auto and home finance company.

And just think ... the government doesn't have any of its own money, nor does it produce anything of value. Instead, it takes your money away from you by threat of force (and actual force). Sweet deal, uh?

Your grandchildren will be working for owned by the State.