One of my long-time contentions is that, despite the posturing otherwise, when it comes to actual implemenation, Republicans and Democrats are not that different. It is just the public face that is put on the actions. Today, the Federal government took the unprecedented step of seizing our nations two largest mortgage lenders, a move that, if we had a Democratic President, would certainly be decried as Socialism:
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CNN- Federal officials on Sunday unveiled an extraordinary takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, putting the government in charge of the twin mortgage giants and the $5 trillion in home loans they back.
The move, which extends as much as $200 billion in Treasury support to the two companies (LK Note- "support" meaning "bailout" in this context), marks Washington's most dramatic attempt yet to shore up the nation's housing market, which is suffering from record foreclosures and falling prices.
President Bush called the move "critical" to the housing market recovery. "Americans should be confident that the actions taken today will strengthen our ability to weather the housing correction and are critical to returning the economy to stronger sustained growth in the future," he said. (LK Note 2- Meaning "John McCain would have no chance of winning the election if Americans knew how bad our economy really was as a result of 8 years of mismanagement that McCain voted to support.")
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The good news is that as long as we have a Republican in office, we can pretend that we don't still need to raise taxes. We can raise money the old-fashioned way- borrow it from the Chinese. There is a small peice of Mid-West that they don't own yet. (Of course that is sarcasm.)
Imagine if the Federal government under Bill Clinton or worse yet Barach Obama had done this. The hue and cry that come come from the Grand Ole Party!
Before anyone says "Well, George Bush is not a REAL Republican" the answer is that yes he is. He was nominated and elected twice. And he carried the Conservative electorate, perhaps reluctantly, but nonetheless. You can't wait and see what someone does and then decide if you want to accept responsibility for voting for them. I know that good old Ronald Reagan's administration coined the term "plausible deniability" and President Bush is certainly well positioned to offer that he didn't know what he was doing, but at the end of the day, you voted for him.