The $700b slush fund for the Treasury capped off Congress' final capitulation to the Bush gang

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With $350 billion in 'emergency' taxpayer dollars already shoveled out the door to crony capitalists to feather their high rolling benefactors' golden parachutes, Bush's collection of corporate facilitators are already scrambling to dole out the remaining $350b to their other cherry-picked moneybags.

It's a disgusting spectacle to watch the very centers of our nation's wealth and influence falling at the feet of the government they so disdained like wounded, penniless fawns to collect their final cut of borrowed money mortgaged off the future of the next generations; crony capitalists pushing their way past the millions of struggling Americans left at the gate of the Bush White House to claim their lame-duck party's consolation prize.

The needs and concerns of average Americans, the vast majority of who are separated by a gulf in income from the remaining 10% who hold 70% or so of our nations wealth, are always a miserly afterthought to Congress when it comes to rapidly engineering 'emergencies' and 'rescues' and delivering on them.

Watch how painful it will be for legislators to agree on addressing the 'Main Street' portion of their economic concerns. They've already hoisted a bucketful of money to the top of the economic ladder and we're supposed to gather at the bottom and catch whatever happens to fall out as those privileged few positioned securely at the top grab for it.

Watch as the 'Main Street' portion of Congress' economic concern is put off until next year and attacked by the opposition obstructionists as 'giveaways' and 'handouts,' even as they demand more mad money for their Wall Street gambling club.

Pres. elect Obama said today that he has an economic plan "big enough to meet the challenges we face that I intend to sign soon after taking office."

His plan reportedly includes a "two-year nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We'll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels," he told reporters.

Those initiatives, coupled with a two-year, $175 billion stimulus package with money for cash-strapped state governments and infrastructure projects as well as a $1,000 tax credit for working families, will have to run the same legislative gauntlet as in the past, this time with Pres. Obama in place to willingly put his mark on the final product.

"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis; these are long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long," he said.

However, with Congress nursing a hangover from their latest binging capitulation to the debarking Bush gang, the reserve of money which magically materialized for them to dole out billions for the benefit and pleasure of wealthy investors and speculators will be cast by the opportunistic misers as an empty vault when 'Main Street' comes knocking at their door.

[unhappycamper]

1. Don't forget we had to buy votes for $150 billion. n/t

[bigtree]

6. yep

in order to get the stimulus bill past the republican obstructionists we'll have to pick from a list of their craven corporatist cronies and throw them a bone

[ben_meyers]

2. The American people must demand the immediate resignation

recall or impeachment of any public official who had any part in the writing, reading, voting for or signing this insane $700b slush fund. There is absolutely no excuse for any of them or their advisors not to have understood what they were handing to that criminal Bush.

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3. Most legislators in the leadership are busy pretending the money is saving the banking system

. . . for the little guys and gals. Ooh! Citibank is going to rewrite some loan$!!

[truedelphi]

7. Obama was one of those voting for this bill.

Just as he voted for FISA & other less than magnificent pieces of legislation.<sigh>

[lib2DaBone]

4. ..there must be something else CONgress can give the Bush Crime Family before he leaves?

[bigtree]

5. they'll have to declare an *emergency* first

:eyes:

[MetaTrope]

8. Just imagine how many of those billions will end up unaccounted for

And how many billions does it take to finance the next neocon coup? Putting a couple impoverished foreigners with box cutters on some commuter flights didn't cost billions.

[bigtree]

9. I wonder how they're determining the value of those assets they're buying up

I can see the feathering of their government-in-waiting with these gifts to money barons who've run their institutions into the ground. That's in line with the attitude of this inept administration who was gifted with a second term and performed even worse than the first disastrous one.

[agincourt]

10. this thing smelled like a rat,

when the repig congress critters wouldn't vote for it. Why oh why did Nancy and Harry think Paulson and Bernake were anything more than crimminals employed by the gee whiz crimminal W?
Anything that comes from the Bush administration is rotten including Gates. They still keep thinking this is a real presidency not some dump truck full of shit that should have never entered Washington.