Generational theft?

(noon. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

We’ve all seen the headlines.

Minority Leader Boehner:

The hundreds of billions of dollars Washington is borrowing to finance this pork-barrel monstrosity will come from our children and grandchildren. This is not “stimulus” – it’s generational theft.

Michelle Malken:

Barack Obama has dubbed his behemoth fiscal stimulus proposal the “American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” But if truth in advertising were required of White House plans, only one title would fit the trillion-dollar-plus-and-growing bill: The Generational Theft Act of 2009.

Even John McCain got into the act:

“I think this can only be described as generational theft. What we are doing is amassing multi-trillions of dollars,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), speaking on CBS’s “Face The Nation” with Bob Schieffer.

Now… let’s go back in history, shall we?

On Sept. 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld stated:

“According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,” Rumsfeld admitted.

This wasn’t a liberal myth, or, lie.  Here is the actual speech, from the Department of Defense website, given by Donald Rumsfeld.

The technology revolution has transformed organizations across the private sector, but not ours, not fully, not yet. We are, as they say, tangled in our anchor chain. Our financial systems are decades old. According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it’s stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.

$2.3 TRILLION dollars.  Lost.  Gone.  Missplaced.  Untrackable.

In 2004, this was reported by the Washington Times:

How much the new “bad bank” program will cost depends on how many banks participate and how much the government pays for the deteriorating loan assets, among other factors. Bank losses from bad loans – mostly defaulting subprime and exotic mortgages – are estimated at between $2 trillion and $4 trillion, and have been growing with each day the recession deepens.

So, let’s put this into perspective.  On Sept. 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld stated in a speech that the Department of Defense and our government could not account for $2.3 trillion dollars.  In 2009, the banking system of America has between $2-4 trillion dollars in bad debt that toppled the American economy.  The TARP funding started at $700 billion dollars.

Generational theft?  How about $2.3 TRILLION dollars that were “lost”, “unaccounted for”, by the Department of Defense under George W. Bush’s administration?

What kind of fallout would that statement made by Donald Rumsfeld have had on the Presidency of George W. Bush if 9/11 hadn’t occurred the following day?

Generational theft the Republicans are claiming of President Obama’s stimulus plan.  It is a plan that is designed to create jobs.  It is a plan designed to save our economy from total collapse.  

What ever happened to that $2.3 TRILLION dollars that the DoD couldn’t account for under George W. Bush?

Generational theft?  How about ENRON’s forced blackout’s that drove up energy costs fraudulently?

EVERETT, Wash – In the midst of the California energy troubles in early 2001, when power plants were under a federal order to deliver a full output of electricity, the Enron Corporation arranged to take a plant off-line on the same day that California was hit by rolling blackouts, according to audiotapes of company traders released here on Thursday.

The tapes and memorandums were made public by a small public utility north of Seattle that is fighting Enron over a power contract. They also showed that Enron, as early as 1998, was creating artificial energy shortages and running up prices in Canada in advance of California’s larger experiment with deregulation.

Remember that word?  Deregulation?

“This is going to be a word-of-mouth kind of thing,” Mr. Williams says on the tape. “We want you guys to get a little creative and come up with a reason to go down.” After agreeing to take the plant down, the Nevada official questioned the reason. “O.K., so we’re just coming down for some maintenance, like a forced outage type of thing?” Rich asks. “And that’s cool?”

“Hopefully,” Mr. Williams says, before both men laugh.

The next day, Jan. 17, 2001, as the plant was taken out of service, the State of California called a power emergency, and rolling blackouts hit up to a half-million consumers, according to daily logs of the western power grid.

Officials with the Snohomish County Public Utility District in Washington State, which released the tapes, said they believed Enron officials had taken similar measures with other power plants. This tape, they said, was proof of what was going on.

At the time, power plants in the greater West Coast grid were under a federal emergency order to keep their plants running.

Remember Phil Gramm, Sen. John McCain’s advisor who helped push through the bill on Dec. 15, 1999, that led to that deregulation?

Let’s talk about generational theft, Republican’s.  Let’s compare the record that cannot be debated on who stole what from whom when.

Let’s talk about Dick Cheney’s Halliburton and subsidiary KBR.

HOUSTON – Albert J. Stanley, a former executive with a Halliburton subsidiary, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges that he conspired to pay $182 million in bribes to Nigerian officials in return for contracts to build a $6 billion liquefied natural gas complex.

This is the same KBR whose shoddy electrical work is still killing American soldier’s in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, they have profited enormously from kickbacks, bribes, and Dick Cheney’s influence — at the taxpayer expense.

Generational theft?  Do Republicans really want to make that claim?  

Yes, they do.  They have no shame.  No morals.  No decency.

After eight years of “generational theft” under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the Republican’s have ZERO credibility to be tossing that charge around.