John Stossel Calls BS on Bailout

Unless you have been lost in a Peruvian rainstorm, or have been hiding in a closet under a blanket for the last month or so, you are aware that this nation is in the midst of a financial crisis that, according to many, if not handled correctly by our government, could very well result in a deep recession, if not an out-right depression. Others have said it could lead to a world-wide financial collapse. Dear me.

A little over one week ago, our congressional representatives (affectionately known around here as congress-critters) in the U. S. House of Representatives, with help from some well-heeled Wall Street financial types, came up with an unprecedented government bailout bill. This plan, which was going to sock it to us hapless taxpayers for $700 billion, was hastily thrown together and put up for a vote in the House.

The legislation, which comprised all of three pages, went down in flames after a House vote, with a sizable number of representatives from both parties treating as if it had the Plague and running for the proverbial tall grass.

In the short run up to the House vote, mass outrage poured forth on the part of the American people, who were not at all pleased with the idea of footing the bill for a $700 billion bailout, and who were not exactly shy about letting their representatives know of their displeasure.

However, undaunted, and apparently deaf-as-a-post, the U.S. Senate went to work on its own version of the bill, and eventually hammered out a deal they insisted would be more palatable than the three page version that had failed to pass muster over in the House.

What they eventually came up with was 450-plus pages worth of government giveaway goodies, dripping with enough pork fat to make Emeril Lagasse positively swoon. This version, promptly re-packaged as a "rescue bill," sailed right through the Senate with nary an audible whimper, and was promptly rushed over to the House.

There it easily won passage, despite the congressional phone lines and email servers that were no doubt putting out enough blue smoke from us irate voters slamming them 24/7, that Chinese spy-satellites could probably make it out.

With the ink probably still wet from whatever stamp of approval the House hurriedly affixed to it, the finished product was rushed right over to be signed into law by a very eager President George W. Bush, and before you could say "Hey, wait a second, here..." Boom! it was the law of the land.

It has now been over a week since the "The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" was passed and immediately signed into law, in what I can only say must have been record time.

After all, our economic underpinnings were on the line! Millions would be out of work! It would be soup lines for all!

Or so we were told.

As most of you even partially plugged in to the the goings-on within the MSM (Main Stream Media) are probably aware, journalism, in the traditional sense, is deader than a doornail. What now passes for this once proud profession has, in recent years, degenerated into nothing more than a support mechanism for socialism. Sadly, for those of us who value freedom, the MSM has embraced a political philosophy that is decidedly unfriendly to the concepts of individual liberty, and freedom in general.

One notable exception is John Stossel, who bucks this unfortunate trend in a big way over at ABC. Needless to say, his approach is decidedly different than what now passes for the norm in his profession, so much so that I am truly amazed that ABC hasn't kicked him out the door.

Mr. Stossel has weighed in with his thoughts on the so-called government bailout. As he is probably the closest thing to a libertarian as one will find in the MSM, I have been waiting to hear what he has to say on the matter.

He, like me, feels it would have been better if the government essentially backed away and allowed the free market to take care of itself.

The idea that the very same government that helped get us into this mess to begin with, was somehow going to magically fix thirty years of government mismanagement in a three day period has seemed a little suspicious to me.

My impression is that we have just witnessed a heretofore unseen transfer of the reins of our entire financial system over to the federal government.

I am not really sure the government is going to hand them back.

Ever.