I don’t claim to be an expert on government spending, so please correct me if I am interpreting the budget numbers below in the wrong way. But from my home office on this sunny Friday morning, here’s how I see it:
- Proposed bailout of insurance giant AIG by the US government: $85 billion.
- Total spending per major agency in 2008, according to the US Office of Management and Budget (in billions):
- Education: $57.2
- Health & Human Services: $71.9
- Housing & Urban Development: $37.4
- Energy: $23.9
- Transportation: $15.5
- Environmental Protection Agency: $7.5
- Agriculture: $21.8
President Bush is proposing to spend 1.5 times more on bailing out a poorly-run insurance company than we do on education. No CEO Left Behind.
Think about how conservatives like to moan about welfare spending. Proposed total spending for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in 2009? $236 million. The AIG bailout would be 360 times more than that. So TANF fosters a culture of dependency and helplessness, but corporate bailouts apparently just help out some fellas who’ve had some bad luck.
Seriously unbelievable.
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people always say that you can tell someone’s priorities based on how they spend their money…i think they might be right
Free markets, my azz:
- Bush: Government intervention essential to stabilize economy
- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson: Rescue plan to cost ‘hundreds of billions’
Well, you know, now we REALLY don’t have money to fix social security or health care.
Awesome post! Mind if I repost it on my blog?
Total proposed layout for bailouts this week- according to the numbers I’ve viewed, is 1.1 trillion dollars.
Of course, the amazing thing is that there is no way- even given Bush’s abortion of a Presidency, that B.O. will be elected.
Even with this massive stupidity a plurality of whites will create an excuse not to vote for a black man and the bottom line is that we’ll only be headed further into the abyss once Mr McGoo and Sarah Holy White Trash take office.
We’ve not only sold out our children’s futures, but our grandchildren’s as well.
Add up the cost of the needless war with this bailout and we arguably could have eradicated poverty and educated every citizen in this country while refurnishing the country’s infrastructure.
Instead, every person in the US has simply slid 35000.00 deeper in debt.
I’ve been wanting to post about this for a few days now, but haven’t been able to organise my thoughts in a coherent manner. This is a great summary.
It absolutely drives me mad to hear about how the downside risks of capitalism can magically be socialised because the company is suddenly too big to fail. But there’s no way their profits would ever be socialised for a great good.
And the merits of deregulation. For feck’s sake, don’t even get me started. But when you have something that’s known in the business as a ‘liar’s loan’ and that’s completely acceptable, something is seriously messed up.
Here’s a good take on this by Joe Conason at Salon.
Obama will win a close race.