Jim Inhofe “roll back the bailout”

Monday, November 17, 2008

Senator Jim Inhofe has slammed the continued secrecy behind where the bailout money has gone, saying that Hank Paulson could have given it to his friends and that the “blank check” must be cancelled now.

The Federal Reserve has failed to comply with congressional demands for transparency and disclose the destination of at least $2 trillion dollars in bailout funds, underscoring once again the failure of top down socialism and the folly of trusting the foxes to guard the henhouse.

Speaking with Tulsa World, the Oklahoma Republican said, “It is just outrageous that the American people don’t know that Congress doesn’t know how much money he (Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson) has given away to anyone,” adding, “It could be to his friends. It could be to anybody else. We don’t know. There is no way of knowing.”

Inhofe chastised Paulson for carrying out a bait and switch in which he abandoned the central promise to buy out bad mortgage debt after passage of the bill by Congress.

“He was able to get this authority from Congress predicated on what he was going to do, and then he didn’t do it,” Inhofe said.

Inhofe also highlighted the urgency with which the bailout bill was pushed and said this was a tell-tale sign that its advocates were lying about the problem in order to ram through the legislation.

“I have learned a long time ago. When they come up and say this has to be done and has to be done immediately, there is no other way of doing it, you have to sit back and take a deep breath and nine times out of 10 they are not telling the truth,” he said.

“And this is one of those nine times.”

As we reported at the time, some members of Congress were threatened with martial law in America if they failed to vote for the bill.

Inhofe is now trying to rally support for a freeze on what’s left of the initial $350 billion of bailout money with his “roll back the bailout” proposal, which will also require an affirmative vote on the part of Congress to approve Treasury’s plan for the remaining $350 billion.

“It is imperative that we not allow that amount of money to be added to a deficit approaching $1 trillion this year without any input from the legislative branch,” stated Inhofe on his website.

“Congress abdicated its constitutional responsibility by signing a truly blank check over to the Treasury Secretary,” he wrote.

“However, the lame duck session of Congress offers us a tremendous opportunity to change course. We should take it.”

Inhofe dismissed the premise of the bailout, affirming that giving away money does not stimulate the economy.

“If we keep on nursing a broken system, then we can’t expect to have a different result come later on,” he said.

“I just think we have to draw the line someplace, and the time is here.”