Okay, there are two reasons I love this story in the Orlando Sentinel scrutinizing NASA’s budget: 1) It’s way past time that the federal government bring some accountability to the space program. 2) It’s written by one of my best friends, Mark K. Matthews.

Mark and his colleague Robert Block have been all over the NASA boys (and girls) lately. Last week, they wrote about NASA administrator Michael Griffin’s attempts to stonewall the Obama transition team’s efforts to dig into cost overruns at the agency. Their story about a heated discussion between Griffin and Lori Garver, head of Obama’s space transition team, landed Matthews on Keith Olbermann’s show.

Well, I’ve decided there must be a reason I can’t bring myself to blog. I figure I’m either one of those Obamazombies in that hilarious Onion video or it’s because I’m still trying to get through this fascinating and very long series in Newsweek that takes us behind-the-scenes of the Obama and McCain campaigns (though, I probably should just wait for the movie).

Regardless, I’m sure I’ll snap out of it soon. I’m feeling too good about where this country is headed. Sometimes I have to pinch myself when I read things like how Obama is going to move quickly to reverse the Bush administration’s policies on stem cell research and offshore drilling. Am I dreaming?

Anyways, as Will.i.am says, “It’s a new day.”

Well, Congress passed the bailout bill and President Bush quickly signed it but not before lawmakers loaded it with corporate handouts stuffed into the bill at the behest of lobbyists for the banking industry. It looks like Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is already rewarding several of his old buddies at Goldman Sachs with jobs overseeing how this $700 billion handout will be spent.

Is this going to pull the economy out of its tailspin? Some analysts arent’ so sure, saying the plan is no cure-all for what’s ailing Wall Street. Here’s what Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil had to say:

What’s stunning is how little the taxpayers would get in return for their money under Paulson’s package, and how illusory much of the banks’ newly minted capital would be.

Under the plan, Treasury would buy some companies’ troubled assets at above-market values. To boost their capital, Paulson would have to pay the companies more than what their balance sheets say the assets are worth. Then other companies would use the rigged prices to write up, or avoid writing down, the values of similar holdings on their own books.

So, the taxpayers get hosed on the asset purchases. Other banks use the trumped-up prices to cook their books. And investor confidence supposedly is restored.

So I considered suspending my blog and offering my services to Congressional leaders to help them hammer out a sensible solution to our looming economic disaster.

But they didn’t really seem interested in what I had to say. So screw ‘em. I decided to march to the White House to protest the $700 billion bailout, instead.

I blogged about Thursday’s bailout protest over at Citizen Vox, where I write as part of my day gig. The turnout for the protest was light — the rain probably kept a lot of folks away — but don’t misread that as a lack of anger about this unbelievable bailout plan.

People are plenty angry.

There were protests across the country Thursday. CNN’s John King writes about the bailout revolt on AC360 from Montana. A rancher tells King:

“We’re responsible for our debts out here. We pay our debts,” Rieder says. “I think George Bush himself said they got drunk on Wall Street. Well, they ought to suffer the hangover like we have to every day out here.”

In NYC, the Campaign Silo blogs about the march on Wall Street where the protest motto was “Buy my shitpile”:

Protesters said they wanted a chance to sell their bad investments back to the government for millions of dollars, just like the Wall Street bankers.

This bit of street theater was intended to underscore the message that ordinary people need a bailout and not just corporations, Asked what message he hoped to send, activist Andrew Boyd said, “We hope to show that Americans all across the country beginning to realize what this means, that we’re basically foreclosing on our future. We want people to take a long breath and make sure that Main Street is prioritized in this crisis.”

I’m not an economist. I’m not smarter than Ben Bernanke or Henry Paulson. I know that something needs to be done to keep our economy from going into the tank, or deeper into the tank, as the case may be. But why do I feel like I’m sitting in that little room in the car dealership where the manager is trying to give me a “deal” but only if I sign that day? Or maybe it’s deja vu. Isn’t this how President Bush tried to sell us his war in Iraq?

The difference is that this time around, Congress is on its own. Main Street’s not buying the dog and pony show a second time. Wasn’t it President Bush who famously said “fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

We’re about to spend $700 billion on a plan that was exactly 3-pages long when it was given to Congress this week? I’ve bullshitted my way through college essay tests with more thought and detail than that. Isn’t anyone a little concerned about how quickly this deal is being rammed down our throats?

Isn’t anyone concerned that Treasury Secretary Paulson wanted to make himself King? Should we trust Paulson — a former CEO of Goldman Sachs whose net worth was estimated by Forbes in 2006 at $700 million — to do what’s best for Main Street, or do what’s best for his buddies on Wall Street? But I’m just another liberal. What do I know? How about someone like conservative pundit Michelle Malkin:

Both parties in Washington are about to screw us over on an unprecedented scale. They are threatening us with fiscal apocalypse if we don’t fork over $700 billion to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and allow him to dole it out to whomever he chooses in whatever amount he chooses — without public input or recourse. They are rushing like mad to cram this Mother of All Bailouts down our throats in the next 72-96 hours. And right there in the text of the proposal is this naked power grab: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

Is it just a coincidence that all 435 members of the U.S. House and a third of the Senate are up for re-election and all of them were eager to adjourn and get out of D.C. this week to hit the campaign trail?

Slow down people. Let’s think this one through before we hand Wall Street a blank check.

Photos by Joe Newman

]]> http://www.anotherdeadcanary.com/2008/09/whats-a-few-billion-dollars-between-friends/feed/ 4 http://www.anotherdeadcanary.com/2008/07/what-universe-is-george-bush-living-in/ http://www.anotherdeadcanary.com/2008/07/what-universe-is-george-bush-living-in/#comments Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:47:19 +0000 Joe Newman http://www.anotherdeadcanary.com/?p=29

(Highlights from Al Gore’s speech on climate change last week in D.C.)

Isn’t it time we moved beyond the empty rhetoric of the Bush administration when it comes to solving global warming, humankind’s greatest challenge?  You know the George Bush I’m talking about, the one who tells the world that he’s committed to solving the climate crisis while offering no real solutions and refusing to agree to any binding treaties on emissions.

Meanwhile the Bush administration proposes the weakest fuel economy standard for vehicles possible, much to the delight of Detroit automakers. And it refuses to consider any type of reform that would reign in the oil barons, who are running free and unregulated on the back of every American motorist.

As we start sliding toward the end of the worst presidency in the history of the Union, it is becoming even more apparent that, while Bush offers earnest sound bites on global warming for public consumption, he and his lieutenants are working behind the scenes to undermine critical pollution controls.

The U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, chaired by Rep. Ed Markey (D. Mass.), just issued a report that lays out all of the dirty dealings of the Bush-Cheney White House.

“This is the dysfunctions and motivations of the Bush administration laid bare,” said Markey in a statement. “The fact that they can, with near unanimity, completely switch positions on global warming to please the oil industry is shocking, and yet disappointingly predictable.”

Of course, the White House responded in its usual fashion. Who us? Lapdogs of the oil industry? That’s Ridiculous.

I don’t really expect anything less from Bush at this point. He’s going to deny his culpability in bringing ruin to this country until the very end.

Find out how you can be part of the solution at the We Can Solve it Campaign.

I loved the way David A. Fahrenthold described it in his Washington Post story, “Cosmic Markdown: EPA Says Life is Worth Less“:

Someplace else, people might tell you that human life is priceless. In Washington, the federal government has appraised it like a ’96 Camaro with bad brakes.

We should note, though, that Fahrenthold reports the EPA’s new value of life is $7.22 million, a little higher than the original AP story.

Either way, it doesn’t really change the significance of the EPA’s downward sliding scale: By devaluing human life, they’ve just made it easier to argue against expenses, such as costly pollution measures, at least according to some D.C. environmental types.

Seth Borenstein of the AP had a better explanation:

Consider, for example, a hypothetical regulation that costs $18 billion to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8 million per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9 million per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted.

But no matter what the EPA’s intentions – and you CAN’T give those sneaky bastards the benefit of the doubt – you’re still worth more to them than you are to the people in charge of our highways. The Department of Transportation puts the value of human life at only $5.8 million.