The Staff Did It

Or so says Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel:

Rangel said last night at a news conference that “common sense dictates that members of Congress should not be held responsible for what could be the wrongdoing or mistakes or errors of staff unless there’s reason to believe that member knew or should have known, and there is nothing in the record to indicate the latter.”

Later:

While Rangel said he relied on information from the House Ethics Committee in deciding to attend the Carribean trips, the ethics committee says that Rangel’s aides tried at least three times to show him his trips had corporate sponsors, the Associated Press reports.

Rangel reportedly denies seeing any of these written communications, which included two staff memos sent to him in 2008 and a letter addressed to him in 2007. The committee’s report says investigators could not determine whether or not Rangel actually saw them.

What a joke Rangel is. The main focus of the article is that Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) is backing Rangel, and that’s even more of a joke. The Speaker has the gall to say that she is running the “most ethical and honest Congress in history.” This is despite, according to USA TODAY in January, the fact that no Member of Congress has been punished for wrongdoing, though many accusations of various wrongdoings have been lodged. Let’s keep draining the swamp, America.

Republicans Are Focused On The Wrong Target

President Obama’s budget is massive, full of debt and, according to USA TODAY, “…did not propose any major savings in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the three entitlement programs that consume nearly 40% of federal spending. By 2020, they’ll eat up 46%.” However, Republicans should not concentrate their fire on the president. Congress holds the purse strings to the federal government, and while Obama is an easy target for both Members of Congress and activist groups to go after, it is Congress that will decide what gets spent, and how it gets spent. Going after the president certainly feels good…but it won’t do the job of holding down federal spending. Only going after Congress will do that.

God Help The Haitian People

As is well-known by now, thousands of Haitians have died in a massive earthquake. There’s not much to say other than God help the people over there. See this link for President Obama’s statements on the disaster and a phone number for Americans who have family members in Haiti to check on them.

Also, see USA Today’s comprehensive list of organizations that are helping in Haiti. Also, see here for a site dedicated to the assistance of the Haitian people, and here for MSNBC’s list of assisting organizations. Donations, I’m certain, would be gratefully accepted.

Government Employees & Salaries Growing

The Washington Examiner and NRO, among others, criticize the growing number of employees on the government roll. I think the NRO piece does a better job of going after the real problem covered in the USA TODAY- not that the government is adding employees (yes, it’s a problem, but let’s allow the liberals to do their Depression-era employment strategy until the recession ends) but that in 18 months the number of Department of Transportation employees making $170,000 or more has gone from one (uno, a singular individual, whatever you want to call it) to over 1,600. That’s quite a jump, and it’s not the the only excessive pay jump analyzed at all three links above.

Of course, the same people adding to the government rolls (i.e., Democrats) killed the D.C. Voucher Program recently, even though it not only saves millions of taxpayer dollars but also educates its students- poor minorities, by and large- better than the horrific D.C. public school system. The Washington Post has the depressing story.

The Wall Street Journal Has Buyer’s Remorse

The Wall Street Journal came out against the extension of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on Tuesday in its editorial. According to WSJ, “…today there is little evidence that the government needs or can prudently manage what has evolved into a $700 billion all-purpose political bailout fund.” To their credit, the Journal admits its decision to support TARP during its inception last year, showing a strong sense of character, humbleness and responsibility to its readership: “We supported TARP to deal with toxic bank assets and resolve failing banks as a resolution agency of the kind that worked with savings and loans in the 1980s. Some taxpayer money was needed beyond what the FDIC’s shrinking insurance fund had available.”

We can disagree with the newspaper’s editors on their decision to support initially- however, I think it is a good thing that this newspaper (recently surpassing USA Today?with the country’s largest newspaper circulation for a daily newspaper) is willing to state very publicly its policy reversal. More politicians and media should do the same.

The editorial makes a number of great points- you can read it in the first?link above. For those who might agree with renewing the TARP program and don’t have time to read the whole editorial, please note the following snippet: “TARP inspector general Neil Barofsky agrees that the mortgage modifications “will yield no direct return” and notes charitably that “full recovery is far from certain” on the money sent to AIG and Detroit. Mr. Barofsky also notes that since Washington runs huge deficits, and interest rates are almost sure to rise in coming years, TARP will be increasingly expensive as the government pays more to borrow.”

As is typical with government programs, once begun TARP went screaming out of control. Not just a little out of control, but far out of control. I support The Wall Street Journal’s decision to recommend a non-renewal of TARP, and hope our?elected officials do as well. It would be a great start on the long road back to fiscal discipline and deficit-reduction.

Surprise- Large Part of TARP Won’t Be Paid Back

According to Neil Barofsky, special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), TARP money did its job (pulling us back from the brink of economic disaster), but also said, “The American people’s belief that the funds went into a black hole, or that there was a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to Wall Street, is one of the worst outcomes of this program, and that is the reputational damage to the government.”

The report comes out today- it’s 256 pages long. As a former Heritage Foundation intern who researched the TARP bailouts last fall, I only hope we can recover a large fraction of the money handed out, something I find unlikely. According to USA Today: “The report criticized Treasury’s implementation of the program and its lack of transparency, making 41 recommendations, 18 of which were implemented. Barofsky says it’s “extremely unlikely” that taxpayers will recover the $77 billion committed to the ailing auto industry or the $60 billion in TARP assistance to American International Group as part of a pledge of up to $180 billion in aid. An additional $50 billion to modify unaffordable home mortgages “will yield no direct return.”

Financial experts say it’s no surprise that the government won’t be able to recoup all of its investment in TARP. “Anybody who said this was all secured lending that would surely be repaid was kidding himself,” says Lawrence White, economics professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

To be sure, 47 financial companies have repaid $72.9 billion to the government. And Treasury has received interest and dividend payments or sold warrants for an additional $12.4 billion.”

So the question remains- which is worse? A deep, deep recession from which only the strong survive (a “without TARP” scenario) or a semi-deep recession followed by a staggering, limping and slow recovery from which hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowed funds will need to be paid back by American citizens over the next generation or ten?

Only time will tell, of course. Hopefully, the report helps us know the answer.