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Archive for December 22nd, 2009

Since Senators engaged in open extortion and bribery to enact Reid’s government-run healthcare plan, it is hardly newsworthy that Washington is riddled with Corruption. But the magnitude of sleaze is probably far greater than most people realize. There is a new study from a couple of academics at the University of Michigan, who found significant relationships between lobbying and bailout money, as well as a greater chance of getting bailouts depending on a bank’s ties with either the Federal Reserve or key members of Congress. Hopefully, people across America will draw the obvious conclusion and realize that big government is inherently corrupting, as discussed in this video. Reuters has the details on this latest example of big government and malfeasance:

U.S. banks that spent more money on lobbying were more likely to get government bailout money, according to a study released on Monday. Banks whose executives served on Federal Reserve boards were more likely to receive government bailout funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the study from Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura, professors at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Banks with headquarters in the district of a U.S. House of Representatives member who serves on a committee or subcommittee relating to TARP also received more funds. Political influence was most helpful for poorly performing banks, the study found. “Political connections play an important role in a firm’s access to capital,” Sosyura, a University of Michigan assistant professor of finance, said in a statement. Banks with an executive who sat on the board of a Federal Reserve Bank were 31 percent more likely to get bailouts through TARP’s Capital Purchase Program, the study showed. Banks with ties to a finance committee member were 26 percent more likely to get capital purchase program funds.

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I did this interview a while ago, and I thought it was well produced, but only just now figured out how to embed it.

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Weekly Political Humor

To be sure, this message also should be delivered to both Bush I and Bush II, Carter, Nixon, LBJ, and 90 percent of House and Senate members.

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Those fighting Obamacare keep hoping that there will be an issue radioactive enough to topple the legislation. At various times, they have focused on the individual mandate, the so-called public option, abortion, and taxes. Derailing the bill with any of these issues would be great, to be sure, but I’m not terribly optimistic. Democrats in Washington would like to have legislation that represented all their statist proclivities, of course, but the main goal – as George Will explains – is to create more dependency:

The legislation does solve the Democrats’ “problem” of figuring out how to worsen the dependency culture and the entitlement mentality that grows with it. By 2016, families with annual incomes of $96,000 will get subsidized health insurance premiums. …Reid was buying the votes of senators whose understanding of the duties of representation does not rise above looting the nation for local benefits. And Reid had two advantages — the spending, taxing and borrowing powers of the federal leviathan, and an almost gorgeous absence of scruples or principles. Principles are general rules, such as: Nebraska should not be exempt from burdens imposed on the other 49 states.

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