About
Frank Salvato
Frank Salvato is the Executive Director and Director of
Terrorism Research for
BasicsProject.org a non-profit,
non-partisan, 501(c)(3) research and education initiative. His
writing has been recognized by the US House International
Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict
Prevention. His organization partnered in producing the original
national symposium series addressing the root causes of radical
Islamist terrorism. He serves as the managing editor for The New
Media Journal. Mr. Salvato has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor
on FOX News Channel and is a regular guest on talk radio
including on The Right Balance with Greg Allen on the Accent
Radio Network and on The Captain's America Radio Show catering
to the US Armed Forces around the world. His opinion-editorials
have been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The
Washington Times & Human Events and are syndicated nationally.
He is occasionally quoted in The Federalist. Mr. Salvato is
available for public speaking engagements.
Let me see if I have this right. We the
People express our overwhelming disdain for a government
manufactured, taxpayer-funded bailout of semi-coerced greed merchants on
Wall Street and the Senate’s answer is to leave the offending
legislation intact and entice weak politicians into voting for the
package by adding sweetheart tax legislation to it. Can this possibly –
in the most incredible of circumstances – be correct?
Just as I finished setting up my new television I found myself clearing
away the debris and dust from a bazooka shot that destroyed it. You see,
I felt the destruction needed to be that much more definitive as the
cause for the need to do so was that much more offensive.
It is one thing to watch a political charlatan like Congressman Barney
Frank (D-MA) lie through his teeth about his role in constructing the
financial catastrophe in which we are now mired; that warrants an "Elvis
Episode.” But when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and –
incredulously – Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stand before the nation, on
national television, and congratulate themselves for: a) working
together in a bi-partisan manner, and b) working in a bi-partisan manner
to achieve something an overwhelming majority of their bosses (the
electorate) oppose, well, that calls for a response ala Gen. George S.
Patton; therefore the bazooka.
Seriously, the Senate’s passing of the Wall Street bailout bill, in its
proposed form, is indefensible. It is clear beyond any reasonable doubt
that the constituents of each and every one of the senators voting on
the Wall Street bailout bill are opposed to spending taxpayer dollars to
rectify the actions of the opportunistic and the irresponsible. It is
for this simple reason an overwhelming majority of the nation cheered
when the House voted down the very same bailout package. In
instituting "legislative bribery” by adding coveted tax legislation to
the exact same bailout package the senate effectively told the American
public to go screw themselves...then they congratulated themselves for
doing so.
In my last article,
Give Us Our Money Back. We’ll Fix It!, I explained who was
responsible for this financial quagmire and highlighted the fact that
the American public will only tolerate a taxpayer-based solution if the
solution is to empower the taxpayer to solve the problem. The culprits
remain the same, as does the solution; crafting legislation that would
approach this crisis of governmental and organizational malfeasance by
affording taxpayer monies to the taxpayers so they can lift themselves
out of this financial crisis by paying their own bills. By approaching
the crisis in this manner:
▪ Liquid assets (tax dollars) would be made available to troubled banks
and institutions through avenues emanating from the people instead of
the government via the loan holder’s mortgage payments.
▪ The threat of immediate foreclosure would be eliminated because the
taxpayer/loan holder would be able to use his own money (tax dollars) to
satisfy any outstanding debt.
▪ The threat of institutional collapse in the financial market would be
eliminated because of the infusion of capital through the normal
channels: consumer to market, not taxpayer to government to market.
Make no mistake; I understand the need for immediate action on the part
of government to rectify this financial downturn. The stakes are too
high, not only for our country but for markets around the world. But the
American people – by an overwhelming number – understand the danger of
affecting a solution for this crisis by empowering government, the very
entity that created and enabled this financial mess from the beginning.
Yes, government has a role in creating the solution, in fact, several
actions must be taken and as soon as possible:
1) The government must institute a system that will allow loan holders
(taxpayers) access to the same taxpayer-based liquidity the government
wanted to afford the Wall Street financial institutions targeted in this
bailout so they can begin the necessary infusion of liquidity into the
market.
2) The government must institute immediate and mandatory oversight
reforms for Wall Street and all lending institutions so that sound
business practice outweighs forced social engineering where financial
matters are concerned.
4) A Justice Department investigation – with full congressional
oversight – must be initiated in an effort to prosecute each and every
individual who "gamed the system” for personal or political gain.
Now that the senate has literally sold the American taxpayer down the
river in deference to suckling at the teat of Wall Street, it will be up
to the same 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans of the House to withstand
the pressures and threats placed on them by fellow congressmen and House
leaders. It will be up to these 228 individuals to place good government
before politics, to maintain their intellectual integrity and their
oaths of office so that the will of the people – whom they represent –
can be done. Truthfully, they are our last hope.
Do we need to bolster the US financial markets during this time of
crisis? You bet. I have no argument with the need. I have a problem with
our government – culpable in the genesis of this crisis – taking our tax
dollars and simply giving it to those whose financial irresponsibility
led us to this point. Let the people use their own money to affect the
solution. Capitalism in an ownership society is the proper course of
action, not Socialism.
Martin Masse of the
National Post may have said it best:
"In his Communist Manifesto,
published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented
after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all
instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number
Five was to bring about the ‘...centralization of credit in the banks of
the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an
exclusive monopoly.’ If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might
be delighted to discover that most economists and financial
commentators, including many who claim to favor the free market, agree
with him.”
God save
the United States Senate.
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President George W. Bush
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Switchboard: (202) 456-1414
FAX: (202) 456-2461
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