2008 Woodie Awards
Bailout bill is 442 pages of excessive power and pork barrel projects
By: U- WIRE
Issue date: 10/13/08 Section: Forum
With all of the pork, Washington looks like a pig sty.
Last week Congress passed the 442 page, $850 billion Wall Street bailout bill. Except now proponents of the measure have decided that a friendlier term is "rescue bill," as if simply changing the name will inspire more people to support the mass socialization of our financial system.
The bill - originally a three-page outline submitted to congress by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - quickly ballooned into the massive ambiguous document put into law. Since there is so much controversy surrounding this bill, I knew I had to write about it. So in the search of a well-studied opinion I did what I sincerely doubt many lawmakers have even done, I read the bill.
The first thing I noticed after reading the first two pages was how many times the treasury secretary was mentioned and how much power this bill allocated him. His name occurs 322 times, and in section 101, subsection C, item number 3; the treasury secretary is given the explicit power to designate any financial institution as an agent of the federal government and require them to carry out their duties as the federal government requires.
Does anyone else think that giving one person the power to seize and dictate a bank's action however he sees fit is a bad idea? Do you realize that Congress just gave one person totalitarian control over potentially all the financial institutions in the country with limited oversight?
Are we simply supposed to hope that he doesn't abuse this power? I think we have enough bad examples of how people will abuse the power given to them if they get the chance to know this is a bad idea.
Paulson may be a good guy; he may take the authority given to him and use it responsibly to resolve this crisis, but what about the next guy? The secretary is appointed by the president, and we are about to elect a new one. What if the person the new president appoints isn't as trustworthy as he or she should be? I think that allowing one person to have massive amounts of power with minimal consequences for abuse is a set up for disaster.
Last week Congress passed the 442 page, $850 billion Wall Street bailout bill. Except now proponents of the measure have decided that a friendlier term is "rescue bill," as if simply changing the name will inspire more people to support the mass socialization of our financial system.
The bill - originally a three-page outline submitted to congress by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson - quickly ballooned into the massive ambiguous document put into law. Since there is so much controversy surrounding this bill, I knew I had to write about it. So in the search of a well-studied opinion I did what I sincerely doubt many lawmakers have even done, I read the bill.
The first thing I noticed after reading the first two pages was how many times the treasury secretary was mentioned and how much power this bill allocated him. His name occurs 322 times, and in section 101, subsection C, item number 3; the treasury secretary is given the explicit power to designate any financial institution as an agent of the federal government and require them to carry out their duties as the federal government requires.
Does anyone else think that giving one person the power to seize and dictate a bank's action however he sees fit is a bad idea? Do you realize that Congress just gave one person totalitarian control over potentially all the financial institutions in the country with limited oversight?
Are we simply supposed to hope that he doesn't abuse this power? I think we have enough bad examples of how people will abuse the power given to them if they get the chance to know this is a bad idea.
Paulson may be a good guy; he may take the authority given to him and use it responsibly to resolve this crisis, but what about the next guy? The secretary is appointed by the president, and we are about to elect a new one. What if the person the new president appoints isn't as trustworthy as he or she should be? I think that allowing one person to have massive amounts of power with minimal consequences for abuse is a set up for disaster.
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