Libertarians for Ron Paul

BUSH’S BAILOUT BOMB

Five years after he claimed “Misson Accomplished” President Bush’s Iraq War continues to claim American and Iraqi lives, and continues to burdent the American taxpayer. The government debt has grown alongside the war, and will be a burden to our children and grandchildren.

President Bush now warns that America faces economic disaster, and he has proposed a massive transfer of taxpayer dollars to banks and other big financial institutions. At a time when many Americans are just treading water, Bush wants us to bail out the big money guys.

 The Bush Bail-Out, which has won support of the Democratic leadership, amounts to a huge threat to the economy already suffering under the burden’s of Bush’s welfare-warfare state. Since taking office, President Bush has pushed the national debt up form $5.7 trillion to almost $10 trillion. He proposes to burden us and our children with another $700 billion in debt to rescue Wall Street firms from their own bad decisions.

FALLOUT FROM IRAQ WAR

  The Iraq War is the biggest government program of the Bush administration. He has also pushed through massive hikes in military spending unrelated to the war, and he has pushed new domestic government programs which costs hundreds of billions per year.

Government borrowing to fund the deficits competes with private capital’s need for credit. To counter the depressing effects of government borrowing, the Federal Reserve System has pumped huge amounts of money into the credit markets from 2002 to 2006. This lead to the run-up in housing prices, and has left homeowners with mortgage debt, and banks with non-performing mortgages and mortgage based securities.

The financial crisis is collateral damage from Bush’s expensive pre-emptive war in Iraq. If the Bail-Out passes, a few irresponsible financial institutions will be saved, but more home-owners will lose their homes as Treasury Bill sales drive up interest rates, and more banks will be in trouble. The bail-out will amount to the biggest expansion of government intervention in financial markets in American history.

 As President Bush sent individuals without trial to Guantanamo, expanded the government’s power to spy on Americans, and started several wars, conservatives applauded what they saw as a strong stand against terrorism. Now many of these conservatives are seeing their investments dive in value, their savings threatened, and a great leap forward into socialism. Will they tell their Congressmen to oppose Bush’s socialistic Bail-out for Bankers?

We can hope that middle class outrage is the unexploded mine that Bush and Congress are about to step on.