Everyone seems to be on this "First Hundred Days" trip. What's Obama gonna do to clean up these disparate, enormous messes? Put out all the fires?
Give it a rest. A plane load of Saudi sociopaths hit the World Trade Center and the Congress, the country and the world gave W. a pass for eight years. Whatever he wanted. They gave him the MasterCard. The result: priceless.
Obama might consider three things.
One is that Tim Geithner was a mistake. In a time when the nation isn't thinking much about Iraq (sad) or energy efficiency (bad) but focuses, as Americans do, on money-money-money, appointing a Treasury Secretary who is on the up-and-up should have been evident. Others who did not pay their taxes, whatever taxes, were disinvited. Why not Geitner? There must be dozens of other men and women who could do that job just as well and right now. Why is Geithner still there? Geithner should resign.
Two is that Henry Paulson needs to spend at least the rest of 2009 in front of Congressional committees investigating how he spent the TARP money. Paulson is to TARP what Colin Powell is to Iraq. Paulson put his name and reputation on the line to advocate for the bailout. A lot of that money went to the wrong people and was spent on the wrong things. Shamefully so. Blame Paulson. He looked the American people and their government in the eye and said this bailout was necessary to save American financial markets. Instead, too much of the money was used to save American financiers. A lot of whiny, cranky libs on this site balked when I said that we should forego prosecutions of Bush administration officials on behalf of moving America forward. I will amend that. Like any looting event, the cops arrive in time to catch the last looters out of the store. Paulson is the last looter. Prosecute him. For fraud. Sentence him to life without parole. To be served in a Congressional hearing. Another prospective defendant, in the name of liberty, is Gonzales. An attorney general who shamed the Department on the level of Hoover and Meese.
Third is the refundable tax credit, which should be done away with. It is welfare. Not even the president of the Harvard Law Review/ President of the U.S. can bullshit his way around that.
A post script: To John McCain. You need to keep quiet, John McCain. You lost and more importantly you are to blame for your loss. You ran a lousy campaign. In terms of message, logistics, ideas. Now you can't seem to shut up about the stimulus package. Another rich Republican market shill who can only deal with spending bills that stimulate the Dow. You gotta shut up, John McCain. We can never go back to the Stone Age ideas that the likes of you and Paulson and Cheney (re: fighting terrorism) have tried to force down our throats. Your political career is over, essentially. So go out with a little dignity. You lost the race, so you can take your lips off the Bush family fundraising apparatus now.