Your Tax Dollars at Work! [UPDATED]
New details have emerged on how the government came up with the $700,000,000,000 bailout figure:
“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”
They arrived at a figure of 700 billion of our tax dollars because they wanted a big number. Glad we have such consummate professionals working on our behalf out there in Washington.
(hat tip: Radley Balko)
[UPDATE 09/29/08]
The bailout has failed in the House. The Spectator opines:
One of the things the market seems to fear about a bailout is inflation due to the staggering price tag. Even if the government recoups some of its purchases when the market stabilizes, as bailout proponents argue, the spending outlays will be done immediately, requiring a huge increase in the debt limit that’s in the current plan.
…
So a substantial indirect effect of the bailout will be higher prices for food and gasoline, and this will probably hit ordinary households sooner than many politicians expect. When speculators expect the dollar to fall or be volatile, they immediately try to hedge an unstable currency through buying commodity futures. Thus, last week saw a big spike in oil prices, which had been steadily declining over the last few months. Other commodities, notably gold, also shot up. Corn and wheat prices, already boosted because of ethanol mandates, will also likely shoot up in response to a falling dollar.
I’m still pessimistic about the prospects of avoiding a bailout entirely.
