OK. I'm not normally a conspiracy theorist in any sense of the imagination. But I'm watching 3 major bailouts happen in a week, and I've got to ask...anybody else see something fishy about this?
Today we're being told that the propping up of the financial industry will cost us untold billions of dollars. We are assured they are needed to stabilize our markets.
The one thing we're NOT being told is how we are going to pay for it. Follow me to the fold to see why this has me nervous...
I'll never forget the winter of 1992, after Bush the Elder had lost, when he decided to put troops into Somalia. I thought it was a brutal, final, f--- you to Bill Clinton who would inherit troops fighting in a war on foreign soil as soon as he was sworn in. People STILL blame Clinton for Somalia, forgetting their history about who put us there in the first place.
Fast forward to 2008. All these bailouts are going to cost us billions of dollars that we don't have. There are two ways to pay for it: explode our debt even further by borrowing the money from foreign banks, or RAISE TAXES.
Call me a cynic...but does it seem like the Bush Administration is destined to leave Obama a no-win situation on taxes as soon as he takes office?
Like I said, there is precedent here with the Bush gang. See 1992. But it has gotta seem like a win-win for the Republicans here, one way or another.
If Obama wins, he'll get stuck with trying to fix the problem, and will be seen as a tax raiser to do it.
If McCain wins, well, we just kill off the federal government as we know it, and cut entitlements to the bone to pay off the big bankers...a Republican wet dream.
We have a similar situation going on here in Maryland. Outgoing Republican Governor Bob Erhlich left a structural deficit that current Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley was left to fix. O'Malley had to raise taxes, his popularity plummeted.
I'm seeing a lot of similarities here, and I don't like it. Somebody talk me off the ledge...