Comrade, Your Government is Ready

Comrade, your government is ready.

As the Obama Administration moves very swiftly to pass legislation on energy, mortgage, health care, and environmental policy before Americans know what is happening a disturbing trend is emerging… we’re letting the government take over all of these areas of the economy when everybody should know the government can’t run anything.  Take the entire AIG executive bonuses debacle as but one small example:

And as for the $165 million or so in AIG bonus payments, the Obama administration — including the president, Treasury man Tim Geithner, and economic adviser Larry Summers — knew all about them many months ago. They were undoubtedly informed of this during the White House transition.

So there’s no big surprise. Nobody should be shocked. But President Obama is doing his best play-acting ever. He knows full well that the nationwide outcry against federal bailouts and takeovers is only going to get worse on his watch. His poll numbers are already falling, and this AIG episode is going to pull them down more.

The United States government engineered this entire takeover of AIG.  It started when George W. Bush was in office and continued under the Obama administration.  Taxpayers now own 80% of AIG and this is how the majority shareholders act?  The entire government comes to a standstill over $165 million they knew was there when the U.S. GDP is over $14 trillion?  We want the government involved in more areas of our economy?

One of the great ironies, which of course isn’t being reported in the news is that:

[H]as anybody asked Team Obama why it is more than willing to break mortgage contracts with a bankruptcy-judge cram-down, but won’t cram-down compensation agreements for AIG, despite the fact that the U.S. government owns the company? Kind of odd, don’t you think?

This kind of stuff is what you get when the governmnet gets involved in private industry.  Politics takes center stage and nothing gets done.  The United States is in one of the worst recessions in a generation and, obviously, the Treasury Department is a pretty important place right now.  You’d think with all of this urgency Team Obama would have the key players in place, right?  Guess again:

With just two weeks to go before the summit of the Group of Twenty countries in London, Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, remains the only confirmed official in what is arguably the most important department in Washington nowadays.

“I have never been subjected to such personal, insulting and expensive scrutiny in my life,” says one second-tier nominee, who was asked for purchase receipts for furniture he donated to charity more than a decade ago.  Another nominee was asked about his wife’s sexual activity when she was at university.

Again… we want this type of an organization running our health care systems?  We want the government to get involved in renegotiating homeowner-lender contracts?  We want bureaucrats regulating our private industry?

And now it is coming to light that 13 of the companies getting government funds haven’t even paid their income taxes!

At least 13 firms receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said Thursday.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout, said two firms owe more than $100 million apiece.

“This is shameful.  It is a disgrace,” said Lewis. “We are going to get to the bottom of what is going on here.”

I’m sure our elected officials will get to the bottom of it along with their approval numbers.

Thomas Paine summed it up best:  “That government is best which governs least.”

Too bad Americans didn’t elect this kind of president.  Expect more to come as we see some of the largest government invasions into our lives on the way.