Tea Party Tribune ^ | 2012-05-16 19:00:46 | mrcurmudgeon
It was the second largest financial penalty levied on a single industry in U.S. history. $25 billion was extracted from the nation's banks for financial fraud committed during the heyday of the home mortgage boom. The money was intended to help qualified homeowners nearing foreclosure.
That, however, was when another fraud was perpetrated.
"In a budget proposed this week," reports the New York Times, "California joined more than a dozen states that want to help close gaping shortfalls using money paid by the nation's biggest banks and earmarked for foreclosure prevention ..."
Oh, just in passing, Gov. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown announced that the Golden State will suffer a $16 billion shortfall. To cut costs while keeping state employees happily feeding at the public trough, California will slash its budget for "hospital and nursing home inspectors to perform unannounced inspections to monitor compliance with state laws," says the Huffington Post.
When given a choice to help his state's most powerful union keep its perks (California's prison guards) or preventing elderly abuse ... you know whose side Gov. Moonbeam will come down on.
The party of "the little guy" has it in for the littlest and most vulnerable.
So, let me see if I've got this straight: taxpayers funded the bailout of the international financial sector, we were told, to prevent another Great Depression. The federal government then sued U.S. banks for engaging in "predatory lending" that was in keeping with mandates passed by Congress. As the dip in home prices triggered an economic collapse, which triggered Depression-era unemployment, more and more Americans lost their homes.
That's when our subprime Congress decided to aid homeowners down on their luck. However, it turns out to be a backdoor bailout for bankrupt Blue States so as to keep their pampered public employees living large.
The bailed-out are bailing out the bailers. And the guy footing the bill continues to be, well, you - the little guy.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, President Obama is gearing up for another debt-ceiling fight. He told the press that Republicans should "avoid fighting old political fights." White House Press Secretary Jay Carney added, "It's simply not acceptable to hold the American and global economy hostage to one party's political ideology."
So, when Speaker Boehner eventually caves, and Obama shovels additional trillions onto the nation's massive debt, it won't be the Tea Party's "political ideology" that pushed the country into a second Great Depression.
It was a Ponzi scheme masquerading as a bailout.
