Keep the Change

Since the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP program was introduced the U.S. government has doled out almost $200 billion in taxpayer money to some 500 companies.  This money belongs not to the government or to the companies that received the aid but to the American taxpayer.  Taxpayers should be repaid as quickly as possible and many of the companies that took the monies want to repay it but now, it seems, the Obama administration doesn’t want the money back… they want to maintain control of the banks:

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He’s been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with “adverse” consequences if its chairman persists. That’s politics talking, not economics.

As unbelievable as this sounds, it is absolutely true!  President Obama called for the head of GM’s Rick Wagoner and got it.  GM has a new leader all because they took government (taxpayer) money.  Now the Obama administration is going to force GM and its supplier, Delphi, to reconcile… or else.

These banks want to get out from under government control and do the right thing by paying back taxpayer money:

“We’d like nothing better than to pay it back early,” Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis said on Feb. 12. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company has received $45 billion of TARP plus a guarantee of $118 billion of its assets. Asked why some banks spurned the funding, Lewis said, “They don’t want the government involved in their business, it’s as simple as that.”

The U.S. government should not be in control of private companies, particularly when those companies want to repay the money they were loaned.  In the 1980s when Chrysler took government money they repaid it early and were not rejected for it.  Now, it seems, President Obama likes the control he has.  This new reality will make things worse for the economy because companies which have not yet taken taxpayer dollars will probably not agree to the harsh conditions imposed upon them which could force a rise in bankruptcies.

One of the defining characteristics of fascism is that of government control over private industry.  It seems that we are witnessing this type of change in our economy.  And do we really want the government running private industries?  Remember, part of the $787 billion spending bill was supposed to create 2-3 million new jobs.  Guess what?  Since it passed our economy has shed 1 million more jobs.  Are those the results we want?

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