Another reason why the Democrats are only marginally
better than the Republicans and need to be shown the
door as well.

President Obama's first budget, unveiled with
great fanfare two months ago, started out like a
plan that Robin Hood would love: He proposed
taxing the wealthy to ease the burden on the
middle class.

But so far, Congress has not rushed to follow his
lead.

The House and Senate approved a $3.5-trillion
federal budget outline Wednesday that embraces, in
general terms, Obama's top priorities in
healthcare, energy and education. But lawmakers
have turned a cold shoulder to many of the
president's proposals to shift wealth and federal
subsidies from the rich to the less affluent.

Congress has called for ending Obama's signature
campaign promise to the middle class -- tax
credits of as much as $800 for many families --
after two years. And lawmakers did not endorse his
proposal to curb tax deductions for the upper
class to help pay for healthcare reform, but did
keep in place billions of dollars in subsidies to
agriculture.

Yes sir. The best damn government money can buy....
or is it.

C

Brent Budowsky's take on the situation.

It is outrageous that banks take trillions of
dollars of taxpayer money for the purpose of
lending to Americans while they raise credit card
rates, turn fixed rates to variable rates that
guarantee huge additional rate increases when the
Fed resumes raising its rates, while they raise
banks fees, cut customer lines, and increase
foreclosures when trillions of dollars were spent
for them to do exactly the opposite.

On Black Thursday the Democratic House (many of
whose members take enormous sums of money from
banks, as do Republicans) passed a bill to
allegedly protect consumers that will not take
effect for at least a year. This means the House
supports continuing every abusive action the bill
claims to oppose for one full year, at least, in a
stunning triumph for the banking lobby.

It is time to break ranks with an almost universal
Washington consensus about how business is done in
this town, a consensus that is leading our country
to financial disaster.

My "epiphany" came when I glanced at the
recent campaign finance report of Sen. Chris Dodd
(D-Conn.), which shows a stunning lack of support
from home-state donors and a deluge of donations
from companies doing business with his Senate
Banking Committee.

That about sums it up. And on another note,
 Elizabeth Warren isn't happy about the bank situation either.

"If we don't see the details of the stress test, if
we don't see the complete details of the stress
test, there's a real possibility no one buys any of
the outcomes," said Warren, who chairs the
Congressional Oversight Panel, monitoring the
Troubled Asset Relief Program. "And [if no one buys
the results] then we are where we are today. We are
in the same place that we are without the
information from the stress tests."

In an interview with the Huffington Post, the
Harvard Law School Professor laid down four markers
for a stable and sufficient recovery, offered
support for the prosecution of individuals proven
to have committed crimes that contributed to the
economic downturn, and criticized bank executives
for their rising compensation levels. She also
insisted that if Goldman Sachs wanted to pay back
the bailout funds it received to get out from under
government restrictions, it should have to return
all funds, including guarantees and money it
receives as a counterparty to AIG.

Hey...works for me. Especially since we own AIG right now.


C

This is pure and utter bull shit !

You know, I've looked at the evidence so far that
indicates that other countries that have not seen
some of the problems in their financial markets
that we have nevertheless don't separate between
investment banks and commercial banks, for
example. They have a "supermarket" model that
they've got strong regulation of.

Playing right into to their hands.

Keep in mind, though, I mean, I have enormous
respect for somebody like Joe Stiglitz. I read his
stuff all the time. I actually am looking forward
to having these folks in for ongoing discussion.
Somebody who has enormous influence over my
thinking is Paul Volcker, who is robust enough
that, having presided over the Carter and Reagan
years, he's still sharp as a tack and able to
give me huge advice and to provide some
counterbalance.

Volker ??? Give me a break...he's nothing but another
"Free Market" Reaganomics clown.

The last point I'd make, though, is I think
that - and I may have mentioned this to you
- but now that I think about it, maybe it was
post-election. When I first started having a round
table of economic advisers, and Bob Reich was part
of that, and he was sitting across the table from
Bob Rubin and others, what you discovered was that
some of the rifts that had existed back in the
Clinton years had really narrowed drastically.

Obama maybe a good speaker but he's just as in bed with
the Wall Street greed-heads as Reagan or Bush.

C

Sen. Dick Durbin says the Banks own Washington.

DURBIN: And the banks -- hard to believe in a time when
we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created
 -- are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they
frankly own the place.

Gee Senator....Ya think ??? Just because they are calling all the
shots and congress behaves like their personal lap dogs. Or our
President of Change has not changed how they are being dealt
with.  To me it's pretty obvious that these same people who are
responsible for our economic collapse still pull the strings on
our Government puppets. Disgusting


C

Chairman Sheila Bair knows that Too Big to Fail is a crock
of crap.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman
Sheila Bair sought authority to close
"systemically important" financial firms,
marking her boldest attempt yet to expand
the agency's reach.

The FDIC should be able to take over and
shut bank-holding companies and other large
institutions instead of just failed
commercial banks, Bair said today in a
speech at the Economic Club of New York.
Such power would shield taxpayers from
losses when government protects companies
deemed "too big to fail," a concept that
should be "tossed into the dustbin," she
said.

"The FDIC is up to the task, and whether
alone or in conjunction with other agencies,
the FDIC is central to the solution," Bair
said. "Given our many years of experience
resolving banks and closing them, we're
well-suited to run a new resolution
program."

The speech represents the first time Bair
has said she wants the new power, countering
arguments that the Federal Reserve is best
equipped to manage the authority as Congress
prepares to write legislation on the issue
this year. Bair has previously said that
some regulator should have resolution
authority and suggested her agency could do
the job.

Absolutely. Now why can't Geithner grasp this concept ?
Maybe this is why.

"People thought, 'Wow, that's kind of out
there,' " said John C. Dugan, the
comptroller of the currency, who heard about
the idea afterward. Mr. Geithner says, "I
don't remember a serious discussion on that
proposal then."

But in the 10 months since then, the
government has in many ways embraced his
blue-sky prescription. Step by step, through
an array of new programs, the Federal
Reserve and Treasury have assumed an
unprecedented role in the banking system,
using unprecedented amounts of taxpayer
money, to try to save the nation's
financiers from their own mistakes.

And more often than not, Mr. Geithner has
been a leading architect of those bailouts,
the activist at the head of the pack. He was
the federal regulator most willing to "push
the envelope," said H. Rodgin Cohen, a
prominent Wall Street lawyer who spoke
frequently with Mr. Geithner.

The system's bitch. That's for sure.

C