Chupacabra Report

News that Gets My Goat..

I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. I was browsing and read something in BartCop about Rush being on Leno last week, and like a fool I just had to look.

First off, they talk about how much weight he’s lost, 82 lbs. Great, only about 200 pounds to go. Then he started in on the President. Everything he says either makes me gasp or cuss. Really puts my blood pressure meds to the test.

He says that “we” don’t want Obama taking over the car companies, the banks, student loans, or health insurance companies.

I’ll take these in order;

>In the past decade, the Republican Congress passed tax subsidies to encourage Americans to buy 5,000 pound sport utility vehicles. As the price of gas rose, and the value of Hummers and Suburbans fell close to their scrap value, GM headed for bankruptcy. In the fall of 2008, the Bush administration shoveled billions to GM, with no conditions, simply kicking the can down the road for the new administration to deal with. At least Obama shook up the management, and pushed for production of fuel efficient cars, which has a chance of achieving synergy with the goals of cutting oil imports and reducing carbon emissions. In recent history, we've bailed out the financial sector over and over again, while we let U.S. manufacturing go to hell. It's about time we saved some blue collar jobs instead.

>Nobody is taking over the banks. The banks own Congress, and Congress lets them write their own rules. The current recession happened because the banks got Congress to repeal regulations enacted to prevent another Great Depression. If we’re lucky, the House and Senate Banking Committees chaired by the reform-minded Barney Franks and Christopher Dodd will produce new regulations to prevent further outrages before Republicans take over and continue to give away the store.

>The Government is not taking over the student loan industry, but the Democratic Congress is working on a bill to discontinue Federal subsidies to banks that issue student loans. If enacted, this law would spend eight or nine billion dollars a year that it’s been giving to banks, and instead use it to fund Pell grants, community colleges, and pre-school programs.

>And health insurance companies. Every year, tens of thousands of Americans die needlessly for lack of access to affordable healthcare, while health insurance companies rake in profits not otherwise seen this side of the Medellin Cartel. The GOP did nothing about this for the past decade except cash campaign checks from AHIP and PhARMA while insurance costs doubled. Rush, you are a multi-millionaire who has sent your servants doctor shopping to get you multi prescriptions for oxy-contin painkillers until you nearly went deaf from it. Go cry on somebody else’s shoulder