Steve Doyle’s Blog

Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk.

Does anyone in Washington DC realize their failure to act is deepening and prolonging the worst “recession” since the Great Depression of the 1930’s? I have never heard so much talk about what elected representatives are going to do and witnessed so little action by those same elected officials. IT IS TIME TO DO SOMETHING!

Pres. Obama

Last night, the President talked about his thoughts on what Congress should do. The President said the United States of America was facing a “profound economic emergency”. He stressed now was the time for action and acknowledged that “…the plan is not perfect. No plan is.” He also talked about the opportunity for more bipartisan negotiations, which would be available through the conference committee action on the Senate and House bills.

Sen. Collins

This morning, the Senate confirmed the bill was headed to a vote today. $838,000,000,000 (eight hundred and thirty-eight billion dollars) is spread over job creating and tax saving ideas for the American public. Investments in infrastructure, aid to the unemployed, tax cuts, energy self reliance and other programs are proposed to get people back to work. Estimates as high as 4,000,000 (four million) more unemployed people have been put forward, if Congress does not stop talking and take action soon to reverse the negative economic spiral.

Sect. Geithner

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner talked this morning about his new ideas for stimulus money. The Secretary’s proposal for the second half of the TARP bailout money rehashed grandiose ideas for the creation of another Washington acronym … TALF. The “Term Asset-backed Securities Loan Facility” would use $100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion dollars) of the remaining $350,000,000,000 (three hundred and fifty billion dollars) in the TARP to leverage up private equity investments in the “toxic assets” still under ownership by major banks. The Secretary talked about how the fund could ultimately be worth $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars) or more. The Secretary also talked about $50,000,000,000 (fifty billion dollars) be set aside for “…programs to help roughly 2.5 million people avoid foreclosure in the next few years …”. Lots of talk, very little detail was offered in this mornings briefing.

TARP was approved in October of 2008. It did stop a very real potential for financial disaster. The downward spiral of our banks was slowed. And, the government had a short time to collect its thoughts and prepare to deal with the real issues of the economic slowdown. It is now February 2009. The last five months have been about talk, talk, talk, talk and talk. The result is 2,000,000 (two million) more people are out of work. Confidence in the government is failing … fast. People are losing their homes. Bankers are spending $1,000,000 (one million dollars) redecorating their offices. CEO’s are flying their private jets to DC to beg for bailouts. No loans are being made. The GDP fell dramatically. And, we are staring a Depression square in the face.

Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. And, still no action.

Are you ready to do something about it? Contact your representative. Tell them the talking is done! It is time for action! NOW!!!!