Growls

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is one of several major financial interventions in the economy undertaken by the federal government since the fall of 2008. Policy Analysis #660, released last Thursday by the Cato Institute, argues that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Review Program (TARP) is a Congressional failure. Written by John Samples, director of the Institute’s Center for Representative Government, the executive summary introduces the paper this way:

“The U.S. Constitution vests all the "legislative powers" it grants in Congress. The Supreme Court allows Congress to delegate some authority to executive officials provided an "intelligible principle" guides such transfers. Congress quickly wrote and enacted the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 in response to a financial crisis. The law authorized the secretary of the Treasury to spend up to $700 billion purchasing troubled mortgage assets or any financial instrument in order to attain 13 different goals. Most of these goals lacked any concrete meaning, and Congress did not establish any priorities among them. As a result, Congress lost control of the implementation of the law and unconstitutionally delegated its powers to the Treasury secretary. Congress also failed in the case of EESA to meet its constitutional obligations to deliberate, to check the other branches of government, or to be accountable to the American people. The implementation of EESA showed Congress to be largely irrelevant to policymaking by the Treasury secretary. These failures of Congress indicate that the current Supreme Court doctrine validating delegation of legislative powers should be revised to protect the rule of law and separation of powers”

Taxpayers can find additional information about TARP, and TARP-related facilities, in U.S. General Accountability Office report (number GAO-10-25) (requires Adobe) released this month. In the report, GAO says the Department of the Treasury “needs to strengthen its decision-making process on the term asset-backed securities loan facility. The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program also provides access to helpful reports and other information about TARP. We growled about TARP (here).

Posted by ElGrowlerGrande at 05:31 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

"This is the broad center of American politics. Look at the polling data, Right now, the Tea Party polls higher than the Republicans and the Democrats, and it is becoming increasingly clear to the electorate out there and they’re expressing their understanding… we have a Democrat majority in Congress and a President that’s on the liberal fringe, and we are in the center.”

   ~ Dick Armey, Chairman, FreedomWorks

HT Big Government

Posted by ElGrowlerGrande at 03:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

On Monday, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) “announced the results of its online poll for the 2009 Porker of the Year,” and named “House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, (D-Mass.).” Frank received 49% of the vote.

Others who received votes included: “In second place was Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) with 26.3 percent.  Third-place honors went to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) with 6.6 percent. In naming Frank as Porker of the Year for 2009, CAGW wrote:

“Chairman Frank garnered the lion’s share of the votes as a result of his relentless and garrulous role in the failure of the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage government-sponsored enterprises (GSE), which were taken into government conservatorship in September of 2008 after they began to collapse.  The two GSEs, which own or guarantee half of the nation’s $11 trillion home mortgages, have been on life support with $112 billion in taxpayer funds since then and taxpayers could be liable for trillions in bad loans on their balance sheets.

Among GSE defenders, Chairmen Frank is without peer.  He safeguarded their lavish franchises and fended off any attempts to establish GSE oversight even when it became clear that GSE executives had manipulated earnings statements, given themselves huge bonuses based on bogus numbers, and steered the companies into such a precarious condition that they threatened the entire financial system.  In one of his most outrageous statements, he told The New York Times on September 11, 2003 that the GSEs were “not facing any kind of financial crisis…[t]he more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”  During a 2003 committee hearing, he casually announced that he didn’t want “the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision.  I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing.”

“In an astounding “Barney-Come-Lately” statement on January 22, 2010, Chairman Frank said that his committee will now recommend “abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance.”  Taxpayers should not hold their breath in the misguided belief that the Chairman has suddenly gotten religion on privatization.  “The seeds of the GSE meltdown were sown by politicians like Barney Frank.  He has no intention of giving up federal control over housing finance.  Taxpayers can be certain that he is already cooking up a new and obscenely expensive scheme to permanently nationalize housing finance,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.”

Hopefully, Massachusetts' voters will keep CAGW's dubious award in mind when they go to the polls in November.

Posted by ElGrowlerGrande at 07:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For their January 15, 2010 issue, Forbes magazine ranked the top five counties in each of four national geographic areas on annual property taxes (story here and list here). Using the 2008 U.S. Census American Community Survey, the top five counties in the south were:

                                                        Annual                               Median                     Median
                                                    Property Tax                Household Income      Home Value 

Loudoun County, Virginia        $4,844                            $110,643                    $529,300
Fairfax County, Virginia          $4,616                            $106,785                    $556,100
Arlington County, Virginia        $4,557                            $96,390                     $586,200
Collin County, Texas                $4,404                             $81,200                     $197,000
Fort Ben County, Texas            $4,193                            $81,456                      $169,800

In closing the article, Forbes’ reporters wrote:

“High property taxes, in addition to providing extra local services, often compensate for low sales or income taxes, which, says Youngman, works fine during boom times but disproportionately affects struggling homeowners in recessions. But swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction isn't necessarily the answer, either. An even balance of revenue sources can avoid unduly burdening one segment of the population.”

As we've growled numerous times, Arlington County provides ordinary services at extraordinary prices.

Posted by ElGrowlerGrande at 03:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)