Liberty Maven

The title of this post was lifted directly from James W. Harris’ article at the The Advocates for Self-Government.  I liked it so much, I had to use it, but with a reverent bow in Mr. Harris’ direction.

With Obama promising more bailout and stimulus packages, it’s pretty scary to take a look at how much money has been “doled out” recently:

Lets recap the amount of money spent thus far this year. A word to the wise, get some duck tape to wrap around your head, cause these numbers all together is gonna make it explode… if it hasn’t already:

• $29 billion for Bear Stearns
• $143.8 billion for AIG (thus far, it keeps growing)
• $100 billion for Fannie Mae
• $100 billion for Freddie Mac
• $700 billion for Wall Street, including Bank of America (Merrill Lynch), Citigroup, JP Morgan (WaMu), Wells Fargo (Wachovia), Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and a lot more
• $25 billion for The Big Three in Detroit
• $8 billion for IndyMac
• $150 billion stimulus package (from January)
• $50 billion for money market funds
• $138 billion for Lehman Bros. (post bankruptcy) through JP Morgan
• $620 billion for general currency swaps from the Fed
• Rough total: $2,063,800,000,000

Yes, over $2 trillion dollars. That $8 billion for IndyMac doesn’t even seem big anymore. Oh, and keep in mind that this doesn’t include the hundreds of billions the fed has and will buy up in commercial paper and lend out to other financial firms. The deficit is nearly $440 billion this year, and the national debt is $10.5 trillion. If these numbers don’t shake the next Congress into becoming more fiscally responsible, nothing probably will.

Yikes.  Here is the original source of information at Reason.com.