Squandering Taxpayers' Money

Think progress has this to say about the Bush Administration's massive taxpayer funding of the bailout of Wall Street fat cats:

This weekend, President Bush proposed a massive, $700 billion buyout of troubled financial institutions, in a plan that "would place no restrictions on the administration" and stipulates that actions by the Treasury Secretary "are non-reviewable...and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." The proposal also would grant the Treasury the power to hire outside firms "to help manage its purchases." Given Bush's history of fiscal mismanagement -- particularly when it comes to hiring contractors -- Americans should be skeptical of his new plan. In Iraq, $142 million was wasted on projects that were either terminated or canceled, a "significant" amount of U.S. funds have been funneled to Sunni and Shiite militia groups, $5.1 billion in expenses has been charged without proper documentation, and another $10 billion has been wasted or poorly tracked, to name just a few examples. Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina was equally mismanaged. An estimated $2 billion was spent in fraud and waste, nearly 11 percent of the total spent by FEMA in the first year following the hurricane. In the area of defense spending, the Pentagon reported $1 trillion it could not account for in 2003. It also paid $1.7 billion in excessive fees to the Interior Department, and another $50 million Air Force contract was awarded in a process "fraught with improper influence, irregular procedures, and glaring conflicts of interest." It's no wonder that Princeton economist Paul Krugman called the Treasury's demand for "dictatorial authority" "an unacceptable proposal."

Voice your opposition at VoteNoBailout.org.