Trying To Be Sneaky
by James Glaser
December 28, 2009

Washington does a lot of things when it thinks we are looking the other way. On Christmas Eve, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that says that the American tax payer will pay all losses that Freddie Mac and Fannie May have over the next three years. Christmas Eve is a good time to try to slide things past the American citizen, but this time it didn't work.

U.S. MOVE TO COVER FANNIE, FREDDIE LOSSES STIRS CONTROVERSY

The Obama administration's decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years stirred controversy over the holiday.

The Treasury announced Thursday it was removing the caps that limited the amount of available capital to the companies to $200 billion each. Unlimited access to bailout funds through 2012 was "necessary for preserving the continued strength and stability of the mortgage market," the Treasury said. Fannie and Freddie purchase or guarantee most U.S. home mortgages and have run up huge losses stemming from the worst wave of defaults since the 1930s.

"The timing of this executive order giving Fannie and Freddie a blank check is no coincidence," said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the House Financial Services Committee. He said the Christmas Eve announcement was designed "to prevent the general public from taking note."

The sneaky part didn't work, but you and I are still on the hook for those losses. President Obama is willing to spend and borrow as much as he needs to, all the way to his next election campaign in 2012. That is why this bailout will last until then.

Of course, if the White House plan had worked, we wouldn't have heard about it. Back in early December they did get by with one thing, and that was opening up the Artic to oil drilling. George Bush tried doing that for eight years, but it never got past the American people, and it was stopped.

George Bush didn't have the front page and every Sunday morning news program filled with a health care bill like Barrack Obama did. So it was pretty easy for Obama to slip in the announcement about the opening of the Artic to the oil corporations without anyone noticing. Maybe, some of the people read about it, but health care was the issue of the day. Score one for the sneaky people in our government.

Anchorage, AK — The federal government's Minerals Management Service put its rubber stamp on a plan today that allows Shell Oil to drill in Alaska's Chukchi Sea as early as next summer. It follows recent approval by MMS of Shell's plans to drill in the adjacent Beaufort Sea in 2010.

What the White House and the oil companies are willing to do, is use up every drop of oil we have in the ground, saving nothing at all for future generations. That is true not only with any oil we have in the ground, but also with any money we had in the bank. Barack Obama and the rest of our elected officials in Washington will and are using any sneaky way they can come up with to keep themselves in power, and if they ruin the country for our future generations... well, that's just too bad.

There is no way we are going to bite the bullet and stop spending so our children will have a chance at a decent, secure future. Washington is more than willing to spend our way to bankruptcy, and use every natural resource with which they can make a dollar. Sorry kids, those sneaky politicians have made sure that you lose.

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