If you were upset by Paul Ryan's $700 Billion dollar boondoggle of a bailout bill, then brace yourself. That was just a down payment... the real bailout may be ten times that amount:
The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $2.8 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the only plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis...."Whether it’s lending or spending, it's tax dollars that are going out the window and we end up holding collateral we don't know anything about," said Congressman Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. "The time has come that we consider what sort of limitations we should be placing on the Fed so that authority returns to elected officials as opposed to appointed ones."
But hey... it's just money. We can just print as much as we want, right Paul? How's that Roadmap for America's Future looking now?
Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.