Senator Inhofe Wants to Freeze the Bailout Money

 While Nancy Peloci and Harry Reid want to extend the bailout bill and bail out the automakers there is one senator who is not only opposed to this idea but he wants to take back what is left of the bail out money.

 Sen. Jim Inhofe finds it outrageous that Henry Paulson was given a $700 billion blank check and nobody knows exactly where the money has gone. He even claims that Paulson may have given money to his friends. He wants to put a freeze on the rest of the bailout money. Finally we have someone asking the questions that need to be asked. Jim Inhofe is exactly right.

 Under Inhofe’s proposal the remaining bailout money would be frozen and he would need congress to approve giving him more money. It seems unlikely that he will be able to gain any support for this plan. He is using the premise that since Paulson has changed the way he will distribute the bailout money that congress should now step in to stop him.

Last week the Treasury secretary announced he was abandoning his plan to free up the nation’s credit system by buying up toxic assets from troubled financial institutions. Instead, Paulson wants to take a more direct action on the consumer credit front.

“He was able to get this authority from Congress predicated on what he was going to do, and then he didn’t do it,” Inhofe said.

“So that’s enough reason right there.”

 One of the things that made me leery about the bailout bill was the fact that we kept hearing how something had to be done right away, that there was no time to waste. Here is what Jim Inhofe had to say about that logic.

“I have learned a long time ago. When they come up and say this has to be done and has to be done immediately, there is no other way of doing it, you have to sit back and take a deep breath and nine times out of 10 they are not telling the truth,” he said.

“And this is one of those nine times.”

 This bill was hurried through congress and signed by the president. 75% of the American people were against it but this bill was fast tracked so the question remains, why?

 As the bailout money is now probably going to be used to bailout the automakers and the government prepares to stake partial ownership in another private company we at least have one senator who says enough is enough.

In response to concerns expressed by some that allowing even one of the big automakers to fail would be too much of an economic hit for the nation, Inhofe said reality must be accepted.

“If we keep on nursing a broken system, then we can’t expect to have a different result come later on,” he said.

“I just think we have to draw the line someplace, and the time is here.”

 I would have preferred that we drew the line and never passed this bill in the first place but at least we have one senator who is willing to say enough is enough.