Bush the "socialist"

The Republicans spend a lot of time talking about the importance of a free-market economy. They don't like government regulations. They try to diffuse and delay real action to deal with Global Warming by warning that government regulation would hinder the free market economy. They deal with other environmental concerns the same way. Their health care programs are essentially built on the idea that the market should dictate how health care is delivered. Their plans to reform Social Security are built around the notion of a free market economy. For years Republicans have fought the public school system and today push for privatization of the public schools through the use of private entrepreneurs, vouchers and charter schools. Failing schools can go down the tubes - serves them right!

Republicans don't like "socialism," which is their catch-word for any government program they can pawn off on the corporations they serve.


But George W. Bush has become a "socialist." Today Mr. Bush pronounced "that the historic federal government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is needed to keep them from failing, a risk he called 'unacceptable' for an economy battered by housing and credit crises."

We wouldn't be involved in these "crises," of course, if the Federal Government had done its job in the first place. An unfettered and unregulated free market is a recipe for disaster and disaster has befallen us. So now the government is running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under a government agency called the Federal Housing Agency.

The sad part of this whole business is that the investors in those two corporations will lose their shirts! How many times must this scenario repeat itself before someone figures out we're doing something wrong. And, as in the past with the savings and loan scandal, the taxpayers will be docked billions to make things right!


But, it's business as usual in Bushdom. Do nothing. Let the market prevail. Then,when it's too late, bring in the government to show its "socialist" teeth and take over to prevent a fiscal 9/11, the total collapse of the system.

Please note that McCain's fiscal guru, former Senator Phil Gramm, is most responsible for the mortgage mess. That's why they call him "Foreclosure Phil."