About 7 days prior to former President Barack Obama taking office, George W. Bush requested an additional 350 billion dollars (doubling his original request) to bail out the banking and investment industry. For those of you who have forgotten, TARP [Troubled Assets Relief Program] appropriated billions from taxpayers to pay for ‘big bank’ mismanagement. The discussion about the necessity or merits of the program will be the subject of economic classes for the next 100 years. The point I want to make supersedes the alleged malfeasance of the banking industry. My argument centers around how banks can now repay the goodwill of the American people with a goodwill gesture of its own.
Government shutdown…
On the whim of a Presidential temper tantrum, lots of workers will face car repossessions, home foreclosures, missed tuition payments, eviction and hunger. Nearly one million people in the next month are going to go hat in hand to banks asking for a “ little more time.” When this is over, I hope those who lose their way of living remember who refused to assist them with their Troubled Assets. In this countrymore people than not, live paycheck to paycheck and despite the inane suggestion by WH economic adviser Kevin Hassett, that incurring debt and playing catch up for months, will leave furloughed workers “better off.” Mr. Hassett also neglects the fact that nearly half of the 800,000 furloughed workers are on the job and receiving 0.00-dollar net paychecks. The same banks and lenders who went to its consumers, hat in hand in the past can now fill that hat.
The intended cruelty is astounding…
From Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who wants to triple payments for tenants and reduce housing subsidies, to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who thinks relaxing college rape laws is fair to the accused perpetrators. The insensitivity of the Trump administration officials never ceases to amaze.
The cruelty gleefully foisted upon the American people by the current administration’s cloistered group of politicos is headed by the king of detestability, Donald Trump. The few who have not been able to maintain their cracked perch on the peak of Trump-Olympus have fallen to earth in a heap of humiliation, shame or embarrassing reality. The former campaign manager is cooling his heels, the former National Security Advisor is awaiting sentencing. A Press Secretary who either could not see or count bodies and a communication’s director profanely accusing the former Chief of Staff of leaking information has become material for Saturday Night Live.
This brings us full circle to the plethora of Trump officials willing to dismiss the troubles of the working man to build a monument of nonsense to himself, the “Wall.” His latest tact is to present the “Wall” as a necessary national emergency. He says we are being overrun with drugs, crime, and disease but it seems to be a crisis on hold. His definition reminds me of being “a little bit pregnant.”
Vote in 2020 for Change.