Rx For America

Enabling TARP Fraud

Powerline has a post on the TARP quarterly report recently released and finds a lot to worry about. TARP: The Looming Debacle

…The Inspector General’s report documents the stunning and at least partly illegal expansion of TARP from the $700 billion originally allocated by Congress to what is now a $3 trillion complex of programs…

The level of mismanagement is colossal.  The report says,

Treasury has indicated, however, that it will not adopt SIGTARP’s recommendation that all TARP recipients be required to do the following:

• account for the use of TARP funds
• set up internal controls to comply with such accounting
• report periodically to Treasury on the results, with appropriate sworn certifications

In light of the fact that the American taxpayer has been asked to fund this extraordinary effort to stabilize the financial system, it is not unreasonable that the public be told how those funds have been used by TARP recipients. Treasury is now conducting regular surveys of the banks’ lending activities; however, with the exception of Citigroup and Bank of America, Treasury has refused to seek further details on TARP recipients’ use of funds.

It’s a slush fund extraordinaire and Treasury doesn’t even pretend to care what’s going on.

The report goes on to identify areas of concern, such as conflicts of interest, collusion between the bureaucrats running programs and their participants, and the potential for money laundering.

Powerline draws some conclusions:

What conclusions can we draw? 1) The government’s $3 trillion and counting TARP program represents the greatest opportunity for sharp operators to profit at taxpayer expense in history. 2) The Obama administration is either in favor of giving Wall Street sharks this opportunity or, at a minimum, doesn’t much mind doing so. (If this seems odd, remember where Obama got the biggest chunk of campaign contributions in 2008.) 3) It may be that the TARP complex of programs is the beginning of a national-socialist type takeover of the financial services industry by the federal government…

You should read the whole post.  It’s worth going there just for the chart that details where the money went.

100 Days Of Disaster Protest

Against President Obama in St. Louis Wednesday, April 30.  Get there if you can.

Via Instapundit

Global Warming Alarmism Under Assault

In Australia.  Lawrence Solomon: Australia becoming a Denier Nation

Australia is joining the Czech Republic and the U.S., where only 11% and 34% of people blame humans for global warming

A break from faith in Australia! The continent down under, which until recently adhered to a strict form of global warming dogma, is experiencing an enlightenment.

“Beware the climate of conformity,” warns the headline for a column on global warming in the Sydney Morning Herald.

“What I am about to write questions much of what I have written in this space, in numerous columns, over the past five years,” starts the column by Paul Sheehan, one of Australia’s top authors. “Perhaps what I have written can withstand this questioning. Perhaps not. The greater question is, am I — and you — capable of questioning our own orthodoxies and intellectual habits?”

Sheehan closes by answering in the affirmative, with “a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence.”

“Wong is wrong on ETS,” runs an editorial in The Australian, criticizing Climate Change Minister Penny Wong for her proposal to introduce an Emissions Trading Scheme in the midst of a recession. Instead, the newspaper asks the government to listen to the Australian Coal Association and the Australian Industry Group and postpone any decision for at least a year, if not forever. Jobs and the economy should not be threatened, the paper declares, particularly when climate change is an unproven theory.

“Garnaut turns on Government’s greenhouse scheme,” reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, advising its audience that “The future of the Government’s greenhouse gas trading regime is under question again, this time from the man who helped to design it.

Much more at the link.

H/T GreenWatchAmerica

Let’s Party

Keeping the Tea Party spirit alive, people are getting off their butts and doing something.

Fighting tax increases in Wisconsin.

Fighting tax increases in Minnesota.

Fighting tax hikes in Hawaii.

Fighting a $1 billion tax hike in Arizona.

Fighting spending and tax increases in Florida.

Some fun facts on Oregon’s plans for raising taxes and it’s proposed cap and trade bill’s effect on the local economy.

All of those links came from Freedomworks.  You can find out what’s going on in your state there, and join them if you want to.  Indiana link here.

Freedom To Listen

Did your Congressman take the Freedom To Listen Pledge?  Find out here.

H/T Regular Folks United

Reconcile This

You’ve probably heard about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico and, to a lesser extent, in America and other countries.  The last number I’ve seen is 70 deaths in Mexico. The 11 confirmed cases here are mostly recovered, except for two still being hospitalized. There’s talk about what should and should not be done, like closing the border and screening travelers from Mexico.

Something you may not have heard:  Mexico has universal healthcare.  From WSJ,  When Pigs Flu

The AP dispatch is titled “Swine Flu Worse in Mexico Than US, but Why?” There’s no definitive answer, but here’s one of the possibilities:

“Access to medical care has been an issue in Asia, where a rare bird flu–which does not spread easily from person-to-person–has killed more than 200 over the last several years. Maybe Mexican patients have also had trouble getting medical care or antiviral drugs, some have speculated–even though the government provides health care.”

Wouldn’t this paragraph make more sense if it ended “. . . because the government provides health care”?

Yes, it would.

So let’s get this straight.  When America grows up culturally and joins the universal healthcare community, we can look forward to people dying needlessly instead of recovering nicely.  Not exactly the future I wanted to pass along to my descendents.

Keep this in mind as you watch Congressional Democrats force nationalized healthcare through by reconciliation.

Investing For Dummies

How does it feel to be a fatcat stockholder?  If current proposals fly, you as a taxpayer will be able to say:

You own 10% of Chrysler.

You are the majority shareholder in GM.

You own a lot of common shares in banks that give you voting rights.

And all you have to do is pay for it into infinity.  And your children.  And your grandchildren.  Such a deal.

Tell CNN What You Think

TaxDayTeaParty has a petition you can sign and suggests actions you can take if you have found CNN’s actions in regard to its Tea Party reporting offensive.

The TARP Watchdog

Is barking up her own private tree.  Elizabeth Warren’s Holy Crusade

The chair of a congressional oversight committee wages war on banks.

Elizabeth Warren is the Gottlieb professor of law at Harvard University and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) charged by Congress with evaluating how effectively the TARP money is being used. The idea of a bipartisan panel auditing the use of the taxpayers’ funds is appealing. After all, we are talking about a huge sum of money being allocated very quickly to restore the financial system. Mistakes are inevitable, and we might as well know what they are.

From bipartisan auditor to socialist crusader:

…The report essentially argues for nationalization on the grounds that, under government reorganization, bad assets can be removed, failed managers can be ousted or replaced and business segments can be spun off from the institutions. “Depositors and some bondholders are protected, and institutions can emerge from government control with the same corporate identity but healthier balance sheets,” the report argues, parroting a position that has been staked out by many prominent economic pundits.

Clearly, this is Elizabeth Warren’s particular crusade against the banks, since a majority of panel members dissented from the direction the report took and two refused to sign off on it at all. Her letters to Secretary Geithner and Chairman Bernanke stop just short of attacking them for trying to restart the market for asset-backed securities…

Megan McArdle:  We seem to have lost an oversight panel, and gained another voice shouting slogans at congress.

She should leave saving the world to the cast of “Heroes” and just do her job.

H/T Volokh Conspiracy