In addition to the secretive manner in which the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money has been spent by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, we now have the possibility that the "vision thing"-challenged Bush Administration will use TARP for other bailouts, such as providing cash to the Big Three car makers.
Can anyone doubt now that TARP is -- and always was given its loose wording and its even looser execution -- nothing more than a political slush fund? And an expensive one at that. Future generations will paying one of the most expensive bills ever for one to two years worth of political gain for Washington politicians.
To break that "gain" down even further, this political slush fund allows the Democrats to derive marvelous benefits at low to no political cost, thanks to the Stupid Party.
Congressional Democrats vote for the auto bailout, but it gets killed in the Senate. Enter the eager to please President Bush, who has already accepted his abuse for the bank failures, very much the fault of Congressional Democrats. Now he stupidly pays the political cost with the rest of America for bailing out Detroit. We're sure the UAW will vote Republican next time around, right? (Michigan Representative Thaddeus McCotter, a Republican, after his fierce attacks on TARP, continues to disappoint with his rationalizations of using TARP or other bailouts to save Detroit.)
And then there is the persistently lucky Barack Obama, who is handed this expensive slush fund at no political cost to him as he takes office.
Didn't the cheerleaders in the financial press, such as the editors of the Wall Street Journal, see any of this coming? The lesson here: the business of America's government is not business. It is national defense, in the strict sense. The rest is subject to endless permutation, manipulation and stupidity.
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