Paulson is a liar

First, watch this video from crooksandliars.com . It was posted a while back and is an exchange between Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Henry Paulson, Secretary of Treasury.

Watch Paulson Lie

Schumer discusses the notion of passing a smaller bailout. Instead of 700 billion at once, why not 150 billion at once, citing the fact that Paulson had said previously that he would go through the money in about 50 billion per month. Since the meeting was in September and Congress then wouldn't meet until January (or at least wouldn't do much legislation in the lame duck session), 150 billion would hold them over.

Note in the video that Paulson doesn't dispute Schumer's claim of what he had said (regarding the 50 billion). He does, without giving any numbers, say that the money will be given out in "tranches" and that they simply need to have a huge amount of money to help investor confidence and so that it is there when they want it.

But they won't really use it that quickly.

It is now the middle of November. The bailout bill was passed in late September. Now it is late November. So lets see.....if I can remember my months. First comes September, then October, and then November....So it has been 2 months. We should thus have spent 100 billion of the money. No? Oh. I guess they had to infuse an initial amount at the beginning just to "kick start" everything. All right so maybe they are at 200 billion? No?

Bush is telling aides he won't ask Congress for the 2nd part of the funds. Hopefully, this is true and he indeed won't ask them for more money. Paulson, however, refuses to give a time table (boy they must hate that word!) regarding when he will ask for the other 350 billion dollars. Why is there even discussion of this "second half" if they were going to go through it at 50 billion a month! Apparently Paulson has already gone through almost half of the funds? And for what exactly? Nobody knows.

What a scam this is. At 50 billion a month, the 700 billion should have lasted over a year!