Ummm, it’s sort of relevant if you are dealing with the issue of whether or not it was a GOP creation. Which it plainly was not.

“The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization’s PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families”.

Unless one has a finer breakdown of those donation totals, I think it is of limited value to conclude that those institutions themselves somehow have bought influence with the recipient.

The TARP is a measure that most informed people agree was necessary at the time and prevented a larger, swifter and more severe meltdown.

What matters is how it was applied, what the consequences of that application are going forward, and how those consequences affect the way we utilize the remainder of the TARP and other resources from this moment on.

Go Google that.

All of this defending of the GOP while criticizing the current administration is from the realm of the remarkably lost. Take it back there if you can find your way.

Looking at how few voted against TARP, it was a stampede after the meeting with the Congreesonal leadership in which the imminent end of the world was foretold if Congress did not give Paulson a blank check with a get-of-jail free card.

Nine Democrats voted NOT to relesee the funds: Bayh (IN), Cantwell (WA), Dorgan (ND), Feingold (WI), Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Shaheen (NH), Sanders (VT), Wyden (OR).
Six Republicans voted to release the money: Alexander (TN), Gregg (NH), Kyl (AZ), Lugar (IN), Snowe (ME), Voinovich (OH).

“The really odd thing is that the corporate bailouts we are now dealing with — AIG, Bank of America, Bear, Citigroup, Fannie/Freddie, GM, Tarp — and the massive tax bill that comes with them were were all GOP creations.”

Who controlled the purse strings when these “creations” were created?? I believe it was the Democratically controlled House of Representatives. Was the Democratic vote higher than the Republican vote for their creation? Absolutely.

Who yelled and screamed that we had to loan money to GM and Chrysler. I believe the far loudest voices were Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid. Mr. Bush simply accomodated them on his way out (wrongly!!!).

The kind of comment you make here is blindly political and gives the Democrats further cover for the mistakes they are currently making.

It’s the SOS – the Democrats voted overwhelmininly for the war in Iraq and then fell all over themselves trying to avoid responsibility for their mistakes in voting for the war.

There is more than enough blame to go around for this current economic mess. Blindly blaming Bush and the Republicans for this mess only leads to faulty thinking. EVERYONE NEEDS TO LOOK AT THEIR OWN RESPONSIBILITY IN CREATING THIS MESS AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO CHANGE.

Obama, Geithner and Summers are just tripling down on what Bush and the Democratically controlled House cooked up. Hardly a recipe for solving our problems. Oh, quick look the other way, it’s our lack of national healthcare, lack of national alternative energy plans and lack of decent education that really created this mess.

They were Bush/Paulson creations. That was Reid/Pelosi/Frank I saw on the television flanking King Henry with the passage of TARP 1.