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I was not sure whether to gag or chuckle when I heard the news that Senator Bennett wants to prevent the use of TARP money for the auto industry. To me that just sounds like he’s shutting the barn doors after the cows have escaped while insisting that there’s nothing wrong with leaving the stalls open.
Bennett said he also adding wording that would ban using Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout money to help bankrupt car makers.
“The TARP money was sold to the Congress as acquiring assets, not as acquiring stock positions in various companies, particularly not in acquiring stock position in a bankrupt manufacturing company,” Bennett said.
“When we approved TARP the first time around, we did it with the understanding that it was dealing with the credit crisis,” he said. “Instead, the TARP money has gone into these bankrupt companies.”
It’s clear to see that Bennett is doing everything he can to show his opposition to federal overspending and government overreaching in the economy while maintaining his position that the original bailout was necessary. I don’t see any reason to even begin to pay attention until he has come out and directly stated that his vote on TARP was absolutely wrong from the beginning. Even if he does, he is wrong if he things that his TARP vote is the only thing dragging on his chances for re-election.
6 replies on “Too Little Too Late”
TARP, a mistake?
Maybe, that is not necessarily true. But, what sickens me is that as the government has the opportunity to recover money that was allocated for a purpose other than the one that it was used for; they are not trying to cut the amount of money being used for other anti-recessionary measures.
The recovered money will probably be used for more earmark projects. Spent money should be spent again. I still wonder if the reason that regulators are considering allowing some of the major banks to give back TARP money is that the government wants more money for more pet projects, but support for passing new excessive spending bills has dropped nationwide.
Bennett isn’t a headliner, nor should we pay attention to him anytime these days. If we want an efficient senator, we have to look else-ware. The TARP vote is largely irrelevant. All senators must now realize that the sales pitch was just a late ineffective attempt of the Bush administration to gain popular support for the Republican Party. There was no real substance to the plan from the beginning.
You hit the nail on the head:
I love how direct you were about that. On the other hand there is one reason left to pay attention to Bennett – we have to make sure that voters know how hollow his claims are regarding how important it is for him to return to Washington and how much he really is in touch with them. I have concluded that a washed up politician is not unlike a person suffering Alzheimers – neither one wants to admit that their abilities are diminished and they fight any such suggestion ferociously.
Voters don’t need to pay attention to him. The only necessary thing is to educate them as to the frailty of his power. If voters aren’t paying attention, Bennett can say whatever he likes, it will have no effect.
Voters don’t have to pay specific attention to Bennett to get wide exposure to his message because, as an incumbent he has the ear of the media and the casual audience of the media is essentially the definition of the average voter.
If Bennett has the ear of the media, all you have to do is make him look un-interesting… The media will sacrifice their own arm for ratings. Politicians are sacrificed more often than limbs. All you have to do is get a candidate who is more interesting than Bennett and get them into the spotlight. After that, the media can make Bennett look stupid of their own accord.
The media have already picked Shurtleff as the challenger to Bennett – he’s hardly more interesting than Bennett (“Middle aged white male politician challenges old white male politician”). It will take time to get the media to really pay attention to another candidate – until then we have to know what Bennett is saying and make sure that he doesn’t have the pulpit to himself. (We don’t want to give him a head start.)