Take what Rep. Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from Long Island, said to representatives of the SEC during yesterday's House Financial Services Committee hearing on the Bernard Madoff debacle:
Ackerman's right about the SEC, both in this case and generally. And although he didn't mean to indict the entire federal bureaucracy, he did so with eloquence."What the hell went on? Your mission, you said, was to protect investments. And detect fraud quickly. How'd that work out?"
"It seems to me with all of your investigators, one guy with a few friends and helpers discovered this thing nearly a decade ago. He led you to this pile of dung that is Bernie Madoff, and stuck your noses in it, and you couldn't figure it out! You couldn't find your backside with two hands if the lights were on!"
It's the government we deserve -- and that's the truth.
We elected (and we keep re-electing) our representatives and they, on our behalf, created this tax-hungry monster. From agriculture to diplomacy, education to defense, our government is criminally inefficient and practically incompetent for The People's purposes.
It'd be tempting to call it self-sustaining, if not for our complicity in perpetuating it. This dysfunctional government has our consent.
As Pres. Barack Obama presses the Senate to pass stimulus legislation, the media have been characterizing his rhetoric as increasingly "combative." That assessment is as fair as his frustration is understandable. Here's part of what he said this morning, not long after the Department of Labor announced that 598,000 American jobs were lost in January, bringing the recession-to-date total to more than 3.6 million:
Bluster? Grandstanding? Maybe -- regardless, it's the truth."I'm sure that at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, members of the Senate are reading these same numbers this morning. And I hope they share my sense of urgency and draw the same, unmistakable conclusion: The situation could not be more serious. These numbers demand action. It is inexcusable and irresponsible for any of us to get bogged down in distraction, delay, or politics as usual, while millions of Americans are being put out of work."
"If we don't do anything, millions more jobs will be lost. More families will lose their homes. More Americans will go without health care. We'll continue to send our children to crumbling schools, and be crippled by our dependence on foreign oil. That's the result of inaction. And it's not acceptable to the American people.
"They did not choose more of the same in November. They did not send us to Washington to get stuck in partisan posturing, to try to score political points. They did not send us here to turn back to the same tried and failed approaches that were rejected, because we saw the results. They sent us here to make change, with the expectation that we would act."
The stimulus bill is traveling a twisty two-lane road, metaphorically speaking, and right now it's stuck behind a partisan hay-wagon with no place to pass. Making matters worse, Democrats and Republicans are wrestling over who'll steer the damned tractor.
What we see is ideological prancing, not representative governing. What we hope for, under the circumstances, is urgent, productive collaboration, and what we get is political inertia.
Intellectually honest debate is good. Partisan barricades, wherever they come from, waste The People's time.
It's the government we deserve. While both parties bear blame for the current gridlock, I'm particularly disgusted by Republicans' insistence that the plan can be "fixed" with recycled top-down proposals that have proven to be failures.
It's time for Republicans to lead, follow or get out of the way. They won't (and shouldn't) follow, and since The People largely have rejected the party's leadership, I'd prefer that the GOP get the hell out of the way.
I didn't vote for this President, nor do I favor, practically or philosophically, every single line-item in his stimulus proposal. All the same, I do favor giving his economic ideas a fair chance to work. Whether they succeed or fail, one thing will continue to be true:
We'll get the government we deserve.
Another peek under the TARP
The Congressional Oversight Panel that's been charged with keeping an eye on the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program released its report today.
Those who thought that our government might do a responsible job of managing a massive, taxpayer-funded bailout of failing corporations might want to note this paragraph from the report's executive summary:
"The valuation report concludes that Treasury paid substantially more for the assets it purchased under the TARP than their then-current market value. The use of a one-size-fits-all investment policy, rather than the use of risk-based pricing more commonly used in market transactions, underlies the magnitude of the discount. A number of reasons for this result have been suggested. The Panel has not determined whether these reasons are valid or whether they justify the large subsidy that was created. In addition, the Panel has not made judgments about whether the decision-making underlying these investments was sound. The rationale for the Treasury’s approach and the impact of this disparity will be subjects for the Panel’s continued study and consideration. It is important, however, for the public to understand that in many cases Treasury received far less value in stocks and warrants than the money it injected into financial institutions."Back in December, Treasury assured the panel, in a written response to pointed questions, that the value of stock bought by our government was "at or near par" -- dollar-for-dollar, that is -- when in fact it had overpaid by more than $78 billion. And those were last year's prices.
So Hank Paulson stuffed his Wall Street buddies' pockets with some "extra" cash. Really, is anyone surprised?
