Democrat Vs. Republican Control Of Congress- Who Really Created The Deficits

A discussion on politics invariably hits the topic of deficits and who was in power during those deficits. Obama and Kanjorski talk about Bush's spiraling deficits. It is time to set the record straight. Look at this chart which can be found at this link. It didn't come as clear as I wanted it to in PowerPoint conversion but the frst column is YEAR, the second Congress Number, next the President, the next column is Senate, and the final column is the House.

As you can see during those Clinton years where everyone feels the country was much better off than during the Bush years the Republicans were in control most of the time in the House and Senate.

Conversely when you look at the Bush years the picture isn't so clear until you look at this chart.

As you can see the deficits under Bush weren't as drastic until his last two years when the Democrats took control of Congress. One could never legitmately make the claim they "spiraled" out of control while he was in office.

Everyone blames Bush when in fact it was the Democrats who caused the deficits. The deficits greatly increase under Obama, Pelosi, and Harry Reid. The rest of that chart are projections. Under the present economic conditions they won't be born out.

It was the Democrats through the guise of wanting "affordable housing" that created the housing crisis and contributed to the economic crash of the present. The Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1977. Instead of affordable housing it created "unaffordable mortgages".

Kanjorski's rank partisanship fails to recognize that there were more Democratically controlled Congresses during his time in office than Republican. Yet he wants to blame everything on the Republicans.

The Economic Mess In Pictures- Tony Phyrillas

Tony Phyrillas highlights a chart by Jake Towne for Congress that shows dramatically what Nancy Pelosi and Paul Kanjorski created with their lack of stimulus package and the TARP bailout. It mirrors the information I supplied in an earlier post today.

How Paul Kanjorski, Nancy Pelosi And Harry Reid Spent Our Money On TARP- $24 Trillion Dollars

From Judicial Watch-A Financial Comparison"

The government economic bailout altered the role of the Federal Reserve and the government's relationship with private enterprises. Schooled in the Great Depression, Fed Chairman Bernanke feared a repeat and wielded unchecked power. Many question Bernanke's fear of "contagion" (i.e. the spreading of bank disaster) and the long-term effects of unchecked Fed power. Paying the bill ultimately rests with the taxpayers. When trillions of dollars are pumped into institutions that would have otherwise gone bankrupt, the significance of not only the action, but its magnitude are hard to comprehend.

Judicial Watch's table puts into perspective the magnitude of bailout spending. To provide a scale of comparison, Judicial Watch presents numbers to connect expense with the perspectives of individual short-term, individual longer-term, and a nationwide short-term focus. How does one comprehend a trillion dollars? Much less $24 trillion? To note, the numbers are not transparent. Various sources provide different estimates. We have compiled numbers from a variety of sources including CNNMoney, the Federal Reserve, Department of Treasury, etc. The bailout is constantly evolving and so we focus on the money committed rather than spent. These commitments, however, can also change, and programs can be created instantaneously with unprecedented Fed power. The estimated worst case scenario is that the bailout will cost the American people nearly $24 trillion. Explore the table and you will find relevant news articles, links to Judicial Watch's investigations and lawsuits, and relevant comparisons.

No wonder Paul Kanjorski enjoys taking all that money from the banking industry and Freddie and Fannie.

To put a trillion dollars into perspective if one stacked one dollar bills one at a time on top of each other a trillion dollars would rise 68,000 miles into the air or one third of the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Just like Robin Williams in his history on golf "Do you do this one time? Heck no 24 trillion fn times!!! And they blasted Bush for $700 billion dollar deficit???

Taxpayers Taken Again

How many Czars are in the United States Government at this time? Isn't that a term really associated with Russia? Well, here's a story about a taxpayer bailout of a bank that benefited Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. And no Rick Santorum had nothing to do with it

What does a $100 million dollar bailout get you? Ask Arthur Rooney II. Its a $135,000 lease on a luxury box at Heinz Field. Thank the top Treasury officials.

To be fair which is something the Democrats forgot

Luxury perks and big bonuses enjoyed by the recipients of massive government bailout programs have struck a raw nerve with some taxpayer groups, and have become a rallying cry among tea-party activists. But First National Bank's executives say the company's Steelers tickets should not be lumped in with other recent episodes.

Steve Gurgovits, the Chairman and CEO of First National Bank, told ABC News Tuesday that he understands why such an expense might look bad to the American public, but he wanted to make clear the bank spent none of the taxpayer funds – issued under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) during the final days of the Bush administration – on pricey stadium seats.

In fact, he said, the bank never touched the taxpayer money. It accepted the funds as a backstop in case the economy tanked, but conditions never got so bad that the bank actually needed them. FNB "paid back every penny of interest and principle" last September, Gurgovits said.

As for the Heinz Stadium luxury suite, Gurgovits said the company was partway into a 10-year lease – a lease it signed before Rooney joined the bank's board.

In the end one wonders how you separate TARP money that is not needed when you decided to accept it.

Paul Kanjorski- When Are You Going To Pay Back The Money

Ooopps..that headline is a few years old. It was the "Cornerstone" of a campaign gone by. But seriously folks you have to hand it to Paul "Strum My Banjo" Kanjo.

In Kanjo's latest misdirection to the voters Borys Krawczeniuk at the Times Tribune pens this headline "Kanjorski: Big banks should understand new tax from government that bailed them out".

Let's get this straight, Paul. No government bailed them out. The citizens of the United States bailed them out. The government gave them our money, which by the way, you didn't have in the first place to give witness the balloon in the deficit.

Secondly the banks paid interest on every penny that was given to them. Even when they wanted to pay it back your fearless leader, "I have not a clue how to govern Obama" blatantly refused to allow them to pay their money back.

Obama now flip flops, stands in front of a camera, panders to the public and states "We Want Our Money Back." signaling his continued populist rhetoric that is quickly becoming old hat.

Here is the consequence to Kanjo's constituents if this tax passes.


Showing a clearer understanding of basic economics than the White House, JP Morgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon, Wall Street's most frequent White House visitor, called the tax a "bad idea." He added, that the businesses wouldn't really pay the fees anyhow."All businesses tend to pass their costs on to customers."

Harvard's senior economics lecturer Jeffrey Miron reinforced that point in Investor's Business Daily. Miron said "higher taxes mean higher costs and therefore higher prices, so customers (borrowers) will bear some of the burden of the tax." Fees, less available credit or companies shifting operations to other countries are all possible costs to customers as a result of a bank tax.

Then of course there's the fact that the tax is completely unfair, a point some reporters asked the White House about. CBS's Chip Reid asked Gibbs if it is "fair" that the tax could hit non-TARP banks or banks that have already repaid the money.

"There are obviously a lot of other banks that were TARP banks and paid their money back. Why is it fair to now go after them if they've paid the money back?" Reid asked.

Gibbs replied "Because of what they caused this economy." When Reid rightly suggested that's "punishment," Gibbs denied it.

The tax will only fall on the 50 largest banks and A.I.G. to "recoup" TARP losses, but some of those losses have been incurred by companies exempt from the tax including union shops General Motors and Chrysler and government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Despite White House rhetoric blaming the entire financial crisis on Wall Street, many fault the extreme overleveraging at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as their majority ownership of the secondary mortgage market for spurring the foreclosure crisis which rippled through the entire U.S. economy.

Kanjo..do you recall you refuse to exercise control and oversight over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during testimony from the Financial Services Roundtable Steve Barlett? Kanjo, your memory may be failing but ours is fresh and ready to expose your misdirections every time they happen.

We Could Be On The Hook For $7 Trillion

Obamamessiah, have you been listening to your underlings. The Treasury Department has not resolved its problem with giving and getting an accounting relative to the TARP funds. According to ABCNews.com

"Our concern right now is that we do not seem to be a priority for the Treasury Department," the Congressional Oversight Panel's Elizabeth Warren told a Senate Finance Committee hearing today. "We have sent letters. We have requested that there be someone named so that we can get technical information. And so far, we have not been a first priority."

"I'm talking about accountability in a very real sense of this word," she said later. "As I see it, you really have two options here. Either you get Treasury to get some religion on this point -- and put their own standards in place, or Congress is forced to step in. We will do everything we can on your behalf, as your congressional oversight panel, but what we can best do for you now is to identify and pinpoint that this is precisely where the problem starts. And then the problem has roll down effects all the way through the system of lack of accountability, complexity that no one can figure out what's going on, so that we never identify the place where we need to start the solution."

Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief ProgramB also expressed concerns because his office now has to monitor nearly $3 trillion.

"$2.9 trillion is just short of what the entire federal government spent in fiscal year 2008," noted committee chairman Max Baucus. "It's like having a second United States government budget dedicated solely to saving the financial system, and that is truly surreal."

Baucus cautioned that this number could skyrocket to $7 trillion when other measures are added, such as $3 trillion in Federal Reserve programs, Treasury's $400 billion support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the administration's budget request for a placeholder worth up to $750 billion.

"If all these additional amounts materialize, taxpayers could be on the hook for a total of more than $7 trillion," Baucus said. "This is a huge, unprecedented financial commitment. It strains the comprehension of taxpayers and policy-makers alike."

GOP Blasts Kanjorski, Carney Over AIG

Times-Tribune Reporter BORYS KRAWCZENIUK highlighted a report that the National Republican Congressional Committee(NRCC) accused Paul Kanjorski and Chris Carney of [either failing to read the bill or knowingly supporting “a bill that would hand out millions in taxpayer-funded bonuses to Wall Street executives.”]

As usual, Paul Kanjorski has been posturing(pandering) to the public that he is their champion in looking out for their interests. Paul, when are you going to return AIG's donations?

U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski labeled as “troubling” the $165 million in bonuses paid over the weekend to current and former executives of American International Group as he led the hearing into the ailing insurance giant Wednesday.

“Something is seriously out of whack, and AIG needs to fix it now,” Mr. Kanjorski, D-11, Nanticoke, said in remarks at the hearing of the House Capital Markets, Insurance and Government-Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee, which he heads.

As it turns out, the stimulus bill included language inserted by Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut that exempts bonuses in employee contracts in place before Feb. 11 from the bill’s prohibitions on bonuses paid with Wall Street bailout money. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law Feb. 17. Mr. Dodd said he inserted the language at the White House’s request, but had no indication it was AIG-related.

The facts bear out that the TARP bill was put through Congress in a hurry. Paul Kanjorski was part of that process, and now he wants to cry about the horse roaming free when the barn door was left open by his vote. It has been known for months by Kanjorski and the Obama administration that there were bonuses to be paid. At the time the TARP bill was passed bonuses were discussed.

Paul, you were right. “Something is seriously out of whack."

To see how much was actually paid out by most of the firms click here. Forget the $165 million read this headline "Banksters used $85 billion of $140 billion taxpayer TARP money for bonuses in 2008".

The American public is just waking up to the egregious acts of the bonuses. Here is an article that appeared in the Pittsburh Tribune-Review back in November on the subject. "Bailout execs get bonus billions" Paul, do you read the newspaper??

Since it is not election time Kanjorski doesn't have the D-TripleC to run to his defense with their out and out lies.

Kanjorski Can't Keep His Hands Off The Money

Can you imagine the audacity of AIG giving out bonuses to its employees when it is taking federal bailout money?? The whole AIG discombubulation has been screwed up ever since it started. Now you have New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo investigating the AIG bonuses. Congress is threatening to enact an AIG tax because Chris Dodd put an amendment in the TARP package that helped AIG execs keep those bonuses.

Read this commentary from Larry Kudlow.

This whole AIG fiasco — where the entire political class is suddenly screaming over bonuses paid to derivative traders in AIG’s financial-products division — is just a complete farce. What it really shows is how the government has completely bungled the AIG takeover. Blame the Bush administration and the Obama administration. It also shows, once again, why the government shouldn’t run anything, because it cannot run anything.

And as for the $165 million or so in AIG bonus payments, the Obama administration — including the president, Treasury man Tim Geithner, and economic adviser Larry Summers — knew all about them many months ago. They were undoubtedly informed of this during the White House transition.

So there’s no big surprise. Nobody should be shocked. But President Obama is doing his best play-acting ever. He knows full well that the nationwide outcry against federal bailouts and takeovers is only going to get worse on his watch. His poll numbers are already falling, and this AIG episode is going to pull them down more.

Incidentally, has anybody asked Team Obama why it is more than willing to break mortgage contracts with a bankruptcy-judge cram-down, but won’t cram-down compensation agreements for AIG, despite the fact that the U.S. government owns the company? Kind of odd, don’t you think?

Along comes ABC News Jonatahn Karl who reports that Paul Kanjorski accepted 12,000.00 from AIG last year. Our tax money ended up in his campaign. He kept saying during the campaign and later how he was warning everyone of the impending financial crisis. But that didn't stop him from accepting our money through them.

At least Kanjo is now included in the "AIG's Best Friends ($$$) in Washington" list.

Wouldn't it make sense that if the execs have to give the bonuses back Kanjo should return the contributions???