After Secretary Paulson released his first bailout draft, we enumerated some threshold constitutional issues that the proposed legislation failed to pass. The latest House bailout draft not only fails to address these concerns, it actually creates brand new ones. The most glaring problem with the original proposal was the lack …
As discussed in Senior Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy James L. Gattuso’s recent blog post, the House this week approved a new $25 billion loan program for Detroit automakers, and the Senate is expected to soon follow suit. The loans are to develop alternatives to conventional fossil fuel powered vehicles …
It is only fair for taxpayers to expect to benefit if hundreds of billions of dollars of their money is used to purchase poor quality debt from financial services firms. However, taxpayer profit sharing must be carefully structured to avoid endangering the economy’s recovery by discouraging firm’s to participate in …
In the previous post we enumerated what any financial clean up legislation must have to earn conservative support. But as important as federal action is, there is a strong possibility that further government intervention will only make the situation worse. To make sure this does not happen, and deal must …
Congressional Democrats think they have spotted an opportunity. With lawmakers and the American public focused on the pressing financial crisis, both Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are rushing another massive spending bill through Congress. In ordinary times these bills would be debated at length …
According to Rasmussen Reports only 30% of Americans currently support a government clean up of the financial system. The reason why? 50% of Americans “say it’s better for the government to let the companies that made financial mistakes go bankrupt.” As a general rule, we agree with this principle. However, …
