As 2008 came to a close, Washington’s “Cash and Carry” programs began to implode. The Bush administration reacted to prevent the full collapse of those perceived as ” too big to fail” corporate donors and Congress passed the Toxic Assets Recovery Program or TARP for short.

The professed funding was $700 billion within the statute. However, under the administration of Neel Kashkari between $10-12 trillion somehow disappeared and was unable to be accounted for.

There has been no oversight by Treasury nor Congress into the matter. Nor were any toxic assets with any certainty resolved in the Bush adventure.

Then came Obama. Now on Jan. 20, H.R. 41733 was sent from the House to the Senate for consideration and action. Within it is contained another $4 trillion in funding for the banks who had their best year since 2003 and were still awarding engorged bonuses to their employees.

Hopefully Mr. Kashkari will not be the administrator of the distribution of that funding, for to do so could add perhaps another $50-60 trillion to the national debt under the Geitner watch.

There is a parallel within the bailouts: In the parable of the man who owed a huge debt to the king and he came to plead for mercy because he could not meet his obligations to the kingdom, the king forgave his debts. But as soon as he left the royal court the man began to seek out all who owed him and to demand that they pay him to the utmost farthing.

When the king heard of it, he called the man to the palace to account for his actions and the king threw the man in the dungeon until he could repay his debts.

The bankers and Wall Street are behaving like the man in the parable and have unleashed a great unrighteousness – a plague upon the nation and upon the world – in the merciless exaction of payments upon the people and in the withholding of funding unto the nation once they have been so richly endowed and funded by the people. And their actions have only benefitted them as they have sucked the wealth of equity from the middle class and transferred it to their oligarchic circles and from the public treasury.

The question that time must answer is: Do we have a righteous king? A government willing to stand up for the people and to declare with a certain and clear voice that this will not be tolerated? Or is corruption institutionalized and sanctioned by both parties as “business as usual”?

Meanwhile it is an election year and all meaningful change has to begin with us. The ultimate responsibility is ours to initiate real change that we can believe in.

– Willie Wolfert

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