The World According to TARP

With apologies to John Irving it must be said that “In the world according to TARP, we are all terminal cases” and that includes GM and Chrysler despite the monumental mistake President George W Bush made this morning. Notwithstanding that one of TARP’s principle authors, Senator Judd Gregg ( R-NH), claims that there is no authority under TARP to loan money to the auto industry, just consider what Hoover Institution Fellow Deroy Murdock says President Bush is doing to his own party:

Comrade Bush once again needs to be reminded that there is nothing conservative about corporate welfare. Bush long ago abandoned any pretense of fiscal conservatism. But rather than recede quietly into the reeds before leaving the White House January 20, he seems hell-bent on killing with an axe what remains of the Republican Party’s central organizing principle: limited government. Bush’s eight-year-long spending spree, his signature on at least 69,341 earmarks, his barely touched veto pen, his $783 billion Medicare drug entitlement, and his massive financial bailout (so far: $3.35 trillion in actual outlays and $13.35 trillion in total guarantees and commitments) apparently are not enough. Bush believes that what taxpayers really need is yet another $40 billion for Detroit to spend with little assurance that automakers will make the major reforms needed to restore their competitiveness.

The Hoover Institution is a recognized voice for conservative core values however even they have their limits to how much big government they can swallow in a matter of years.

Republican voters began rejecting this type of policy in 2006 by staying at home and not voting. Legacy building is becoming a greater burden to the Republican base than all of the political toil expended supporting the President in the Great War on Terror.

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