Rob Miller Seems To Be Drinking From the Same Kool-Aid Stand as Dobbs....

Second District Candidate Goes For the Same Populist Play ...

I never attended a candidate seminar when I ran for office. The main reason was I always assumed they told all the candidates the same thing, no matter what office they were running for, so everyone would end up using the same BS pitches, and not have any semblance of honesty of self-thought. It turns out, I was right - as usual.

Not long ago, I ripped First District candidate Robert Dobbs a new a-hole, for railing against the Big Banks about TARP, in support of Barack Obama's proposed tax. To review, the big banks have all paid the Treasury Dept. back, with interest, so why tax them now? Chances are your local bank is the one who still owes you your tax dollars... Anyway, I was on Jamie Sanderson's blog, just to comment that I thought the name of his consulting company was a little too long, but I passed on it. However, I found a press release from Rob Miller's camp, where they bitch about AIG giving out $100 million in incentive bonuses earlier this month. Here's the clip:

http://bluesouthcarolina.com.blogspot.com/2010/02/miller-lets-end-paying-wall-street.html

Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it? Now, I'll be compleetly fair and honest here. AIG is a better example than one Dobbs used, which was really no example. AIG was the poster child for what was wrong with Wall Street, and yes, there was plenty wrong. They were the company 'Too Big To Fail'....There always needs to be a certain amount of regulation to protect citizens from irresponsible investments, but the fact is that private enterprise is still the driving engine of American business, and it always will be. President Bush and Congress (which was controlled by Democrats at the time) chose to lend them $182 billion, and bail their stupid asses out. The US Government now owns 80% of AIG...... These are facts.

Fast forward to the present. The TARP payouts were a separate deal from AIG's bailout, so their records are not on the chart I pulled out when discussing Dobbs' release. But, they are available. How much of that $182 billion has AIG paid back? As of December 31, 2009, it was $52.7 Billion, or about half of what The Obama Administration wants to spend on Health Care for one year. How you view all of that depends on your priorities, but I'll let you decide which is the bigger enemy to taxpayers - Wall Street or Washington DC. But they are paying it back, with interest, in a pretty quick manner. Most business loans are anywhere from 3 to 7 years, so they're on pace to pay it back in 4 1/2 years.

The point lost on people here is as long as it gets paid back, the move was a good one - it's one of the few government programs that actually MAKES money..... No, I'm not suggesting that the US Government go into the bank bailout business, but so far, it's all working as planned. If the govenment can get t's financial act together, these profits will actually get us in the black again.

Now, let's address that $100 million dollars. That money was guaranteed before the bailout took place, much like a government budget is made a year ahead of time. It was also approved by Kenneth Feinberg, Obama's Master of Compensation for all TARP related lendees.... So, out of the $52.8 billion AIG had, they used 2/10th of 1% of it to pay bonuses, and 99.98% of it to repay the taxpayers..... Yeah, they should be paying us back, but they also spent $6.2 Billion in fees related to the money in just the last quarter alone, which was 75% of the loss they incurred. Yes, AIG is still losing money, and they're losing employees... Over 20,000 of them so far from selling off subdivisions of the company to pay the debt.

Miller makes the suggestion that the Treasury should have taken that money to lend small businesses money, instead of Wall Street. Well, the point could be made that we spent $787 Billion on 'stimulus', but most of it was used to fill the coffers of every dead end (re: spending that doesn't create a job) agency around. You don't get a second chance to spend 3/4 of a trillion dollars, but hindsight is 20/20, right? SBA loans are almost a moot point right now, because no companies are expanding this year, but it does make for a good populist talking point.....

So far, Rob Miller's strongest point has been that he had the good fortune to be Joe Wilson's opponent when he said "You Lie". Aside from that, he has done little to separate himself from the hundreds of 'Business Bad' Democrats flooding the playng field across the country. Perhaps if he wrote his own page or two, he'd get some points for thinking for himself - but not with ideas like this.

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