Now that everybody and his brother is trying to get a piece of the bailout pie, you’ve got to wonder what kind of logic is at work in the minds of some lawmakers. The bailout started as legislation to help some financial institutions through difficult times, but has turned into a “Hey, I’m in trouble, help me, too!” fiasco that began with executives from AIG soaking the taxpayers to the tune of $400,000 for a “retreat” less than a week after their part in the financial crisis was exposed. Let’s run a short list of the companies seeking help from you and I:

• AIG
• U.S. Automakers
• American Express
• The City of Detroit
• The City of Chicago
• The Autoworker’s Union
• Bear Stearns
• Lehman Brothers
• Fannie Mae
• Freddie Mac

and on and on it goes (complete list here). I’ve been thinking about applying for a piece of the action myself, I’ve got a bill or two that could be paid off, and wouldn’t it be nice to call the house “mine” instead of “mortgaged”? After all, lobbyists going after their fair share are as plentiful as flies at a garbage dump. The bailout has become just the latest in a series of boondoggles of an overreaching, irresponsible Federal government. That we could reach this point barely 20 years after then end of the Reagan administration both deeply saddens and totally enrages me.

If I had my way, I’d bring back the lions, only it wouldn’t be Christians put in the arena with them, it’d be Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, President Bush (he should’ve foreseen this mess), the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and any of the Representatives and Senators who voted for the bailout. Those lions wouldn’t need to be fed again for weeks.

But another thing occurs to me. Is it just me, or is anyone seeing the total hypocrisy of the Democrats? Here they are, ready to give money to various and sundry businesses — private businesses, I might add — with the expectation that the money will be returned to the American taxpayer. Oh, excuse me, it will be returned to the American Congress, how stupid of me! At any rate, over three-quarters of a trillion dollars is all set to be gift-wrapped to many and varied corporations, an investment, if you will.

How is it then, that this same American Congress, who is so willing to part with such a large amount of taxpayer money — SHOOT! THE CONGRESS’S money! — refuses to sponsor the privatization of Social Security? If we had used the same three-quarters of a trillion dollars as an investment in solvent companies with the returns going to fund Social Security, wouldn’t it be a wiser investment?

That’s my question. Congress is bailing out companies whose leadership has proven inadequate to the task, but refuses to use Congressional funds (got it right this time!) to privatize Social Security. Why?

TD