"Charging" Our Way to Socialism!

Hmmm...Congress is close to passing a bill (thru one house already) that will restrict credit card companies from charging higher interest rates to those who carry balances. This will reduce credit card company revenue (boo hoo, I know). Here's the problem: where do you think the CC companies are going to go to make that revenue up? How about charging more to the people who pay their balance off every month?

Remember when we all had to pay annual fees on CC's? The companies then started rewarding responsible customers by waiving this fee and charging lower rates. That's how Cap One got to be so big. Then we started getting offers for 0% for so many months etc. Now, all that will probably go away because the CC companies will start charging the responsible people more to make up for what the irresponsible are no longer paying.

So, they will take from the "successful" and give to the "less fortunate."

My, where have we seen this concept before?

So, to recap, the federal govt now controls:

• banking
• manufacturing (auto industry and its suppliers)
• credit cards
• education (thru the "blackmail" of federal funding)
• higher education (coming soon)
• healthcare (coming soon)
• firearms (coming soon thanks to CIFTA, if it passes)
• firearms (even if CIFTA fails, there are still the other 20,000 gun laws on the books)
• freedom of speech (just kidding...sort of)
• your thoughts (refer back to education)
• and anything else they might think of

Did I leave anything out?

Welkome to United Socialist States of Amerika. Please check your freedoms and any notions of liberty at the door, comrade. And have a nice day.

Congress = Hypocrites!

OK, so let's start with the obvious - the economy. This is obviously big in everyone's minds right now, but what sticks in my craw has to do with "politics as usual" in Washington. Where to begin...let's see, AIG execs get big bonuses. Congress is "outraged" over this fact, even though they passed the stimulus bill that had language in it allowing them to get the bonuses. Of course, Dodd and Geithner both claimed to know nothing about the language..."it must have been my staffers who did it."

Yeah...right. Here's what kills me, and why I say Congress = hypocrites. They blasted the $160 million in bonuses that AIG execs got. But that's just a drop in the bucket compared to what Congress got. Let me 'splain...the $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress contained numerous provisions for all sorts of stuff. But when you read the bill, you realize that only 10-15% of the money is for stimulus-related projects. The other $700 billion or so goes to...you guessed it...pork projects for the senators. So Congress used the current economic crisis as an excuse to get their own pet projects passed/funded, ultimately to keep their re-election bids secure.

Um...so it's bad for AIG to pay $160 million to its employees, but its OK for Congress to take $700 BILLION from the American taxpayer for their own special projects??? Or, are they taking from the taxpayer? It's hard to tell, since the current admin keeps saying they are not raising taxes. If that's the case, where the hell is that $700 billion coming from?

It used to be that politicians tried to hide their greed and corruption from the public eye, but not so anymore. They are much more brazen nowadays. If it was so horrible for AIG to waste taxpayer money, why in the hell is it OK for Congress to waste 4375 times more?!? To use a global economic crisis as a means to further your re-election bid is inexcusable, and should result in those responsible being run out of office. They have clearly violated their oath of office and need to be called to task for it.