Now Comes a Topper: Obama's Newest Giveaway to the Banks

I can smell the newest giveaway looming a mile off. The Wall Street bailout, health-insurance giveaway and support of real estate prices rather than mortgage-debt write-downs were bad enough, not to mention the Oil War¹s Afghan extension. But now comes a topper: the $50 billion transportation infrastructure plan that Obama proposed in Milwaukee ­ cynically enough, on Labor Day. It looks like the Thatcherite Public-Private Partnership, Britain¹s notorious giveaway to the City of London underwriters. The financial giveaway had the effect of increasing prices for basic infrastructure services by building in heavy financial fees ­ guaranteed for the banks, who lent the money that banks and property owners used to pay in taxes in more progressive times.

The Obama transport plan is like a Fannie Mae for bankers, based on the President¹s guiding mantra: ³Let¹s help Wall Street put Americans back to work.² The theory is that giving public guarantees and bailouts will enable financial managers to use some of the money to fund some projects that employ people ­ with newly created, non-unionized companies, presumably.'

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