Financial Regulation, Health Care, and Could Insurers Demand the Next Bailout?

It’s time for your weekly dose of Coffee and Markets, featuring The New Ledger’s Francis Cianfrocca, a podcast brought to you by the fine folks at Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com and LibertyPundits.com, your home for conservative podcasts. In this week’s edition, we’ll talk about the fallout from a failed attempt by Senators Dodd and Corker to make new financial regulations bipartisan, the latest activity on the bond markets, and what’s next for Obamacare.

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Related Links:

TNL: Obamacare’s Two Americas
Frum: Will Health Reform Cause the Next Bailout?
The Hill: No Votes on HCR Pile Up
HCN: Democrats Consider Drastic Moves to Pass Health Care Bill
T-Shirt: Lobby the Rahm Emanuel Way

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Tags: bailouts, Bob Corker, Chris Dodd, Coffee and Markets, financial regulations
Posted Mar 12th 2010 at 9:14 am in Coffee and Markets | 881105 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/newledger/2010/03/12/financial-regulation-health-care-and-could-insurers-demand-the-next-bailout/Financial+Regulation%2C+Health+Care%2C+and+Could+Insurers+Demand+the+Next+Bailout%3F2010-03-12+17%3A14%3A37The+New+Ledger

Fact Check: Politician Massa Said He’d Vote for Single Payer

The controversy surrounding the accusations and resignation of Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) is a bit bizarre.  When he lashed out at the administration, and particularly chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, it was viewed as a peek beneath the veil of Washington inside baseball.

It’s a veil few have the stomach to look beneath.  Regardless, Massa’s comments were seized upon as proof of what has been said all along about the administrations tactics to do anything necessary to pass ObamaCare.

Is Massa telling the truth?  I don’t know.  It seems plausible.  It certainly seems to fit the matrix of what the administration has done in the past to twist arms and pressure members of Congress to pass its bill.

But I do know Massa took heat last summer when his meeting with a group of liberal bloggers was recorded and put on YouTube.

Massa: So what happens at my town hall meetings, frankly, is important, because I’m in one of the most right-wing, Republican districts in the country.  And I’m not asking you guys to go back to wherever and send people to me, this is a generic statement about ‘what can I do?’ Well, that’s one thing we can do.

Blogger: So if we got your meetings to 60/40 and there was single payer in a bill, you’d vote for it?

Massa: Oh absolutely, I’d vote for single payer.

(more…)

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Tags: eric massa, government health care, leftist activists, netroots, Rahm Emanuel
Posted Mar 9th 2010 at 9:13 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Politics | 8660253 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/03/09/fact-check-politician-massa-said-hed-vote-for-single-payer/Fact+Check%3A+Politician+Massa+Said+He%E2%80%99d+Vote+for+Single+Payer2010-03-09+17%3A13%3A05Kyle+Olson

Why Obama Will Be Clinton Without The Comeback

The retirement of Evan Bayh is the latest heralding of difficult 2010 election year for the Democrats.  It is also a symptom of Obama’s mid 40s approval rating.  Smart Democrats know that the average midterm election year losses for the President’s party, when his approval rating is below 50%, is 41 seats in the House.  Three Presidents in the modern era suffered such a fate – Johnson, Ford and Bill Clinton.  Of those three, only Clinton went on to win a second term.  While it is likely Obama will suffer huge mid-term losses, it is more than unlikely that he will enjoy Clinton’s revival.

Clinton suffered the loss of 54 House seats in his first midterm election, despite a growing economy, because he broke his middle class tax cut promise – and the Republicans were smart enough to unanimously oppose that and run on the Contract With America.  Despite the loss of the House for the first time in 40 years, Clinton won reelection.

Clinton was able to win reelection in part because Bob Dole was not an effective candidate for the Republicans on the tax issue.  Clinton also famously triangulated in 1995 and 1996 with the help of longtime strategist Dick Morris.  Dropping ideology for practicality, in 1995 and 1996, Clinton pushed a national campaign to prevent teen pregnancy, issued an order clarifying the rights of religious expression in schools,  supported uniforms for public schools, banned human cloning, signed Megan’s law and welfare reform to name a few less than ideological triangulations.  Even before that, Clinton incurred the wrath of unions by pushing the ratification of NAFTA.

Of course, as the Governor of a swing state, Bill Clinton leaned an early lesson in pragmatism after he was defeated in his bid for a second term.  After apologizing for the policies that led to his reelection defeat, he regained the governorship and went on to enact mandatory competency testing for teachers and granted tax breaks to businesses – again with triangulating guru Dick Morris by his side.

(more…)

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Tags: Bill Clinton, bob dole, cap-and-trade, civilian terror trials, Contract with America
Posted Feb 16th 2010 at 5:45 am in Congress, Featured Story, History, News, Obama, Politics | 75802204 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2010/02/16/why-obama-will-be-clinton-without-the-comeback/Why+Obama+Will+Be+Clinton+Without+The+Comeback2010-02-16+13%3A45%3A56Thomas+Del+Beccaro

Obama: We Had Nothing to Do With Cornhusker Kickback, Emanuel: Yes We Did

Rahm Emanuel: "We were involved in the legislation all the way through."

Video by Real Clear Politics

Hours before his embattled boss gave his first State of the Union address, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel contradicted President Barack Obama’s claim made just two days before that he had nothing to do with the much maligned deal to get the vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) for the Senate’s healthcare bill just before Christmas.

Speaking to ABC News’ World News Tonight anchor Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview on Monday, Obama denied being involved in what has come to be known as the “Cornhusker Kickback”

SAWYER: A lot of people think you must say at the end of the day, this is not who I was in 2008, these deals with Nebraska, with Florida…

OBAMA: Let’s hold on a second, Diane. I mean, I think that this gets into a big mush. So let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals. There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked. So that’s point number one.

(more…)

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Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, ben nelson bribe, cornhusker kickback, Diane Sawyer
Posted Jan 29th 2010 at 12:29 pm in Congress, News, Obama, Politics | 66650186 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/ktaylor/2010/01/29/obamas-clean-hands-claim-on-cornhusker-kickback-contradicted-by-rahm-emanuel/Obama%3A+We+Had+Nothing+to+Do+With+Cornhusker+Kickback%2C+Emanuel%3A+Yes+We+Did2010-01-29+20%3A29%3A29Kristinn+Taylor

Obama’s Options: What Would Slick Willie Do?

It is evening. Dinner is over, and I can see Bill Clinton sitting back at a table. In my fantasy, he has a mischievous smile on his face and a cigar in his right hand; his left hand lies on the knee of a scantily-clad lass less than half his age; and he is waiting in vain for the President to call.

Republicans, when on the spot, are apt to ask themselves, “What would Reagan do?” Democrats would be well advised, when in similar straits, to ponder what Bill Clinton would do. For whatever one might think of him — and in the last couple of years Democrats have been as likely to badmouth the man as Republicans — Slick Willie is a survivor who knows how to stage a comeback when nearly everyone thinks him not only down but permanently out. It was with such a figure in mind that H. L. Mencken wrote these immortal words: “The smarter the politician, the more things he believes and the less he believes any of them.”

I have no doubt what advice Clinton would give Barack Obama if the latter were to make that call. He would tell him to jettison Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod; to hire a David Gergen, and a Dick Morris; to leave Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and their minions twisting in the wind; and to announce in his State of the Union Address that the era of big government is once again at an end.

(more…)

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Tags: Bill Clinton, David Axelrod, David Gergen, Dick Morris, guantanamo
Posted Jan 22nd 2010 at 5:46 am in Coffee and Markets, Congress, Defense, Economics, Environment, Featured Story, Healthcare, Obama, Politics, Tax Reform, federal spending | 6349486 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/prahe/2010/01/22/obamas-options-what-would-slick-willie-do/Obama%27s+Options%3A+What+Would+Slick+Willie+Do%3F2010-01-22+13%3A46%3A19Paul+A.++Rahe

Obama’s First Year

Wednesday will mark the first anniversary of the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama — who began his Presidency, as nearly all new first-term Presidents do, high in the polls. At that time, Obama’s approval ratings were, in fact, in the stratosphere. In the last twelve months, however, they have fallen further and faster than those of any President since polling began; and, and, as developments in Massachusetts suggest, his party is now in danger of suffering in November an historic defeat — which is likely to rival its fate in 1938, 1966, and 1994 if the Democrats do not, as I believe they may, do even worse. In a poll released on Thursday, the National Journal reports that half of the adults sampled responded that, if new Presidential elections were held right now, they would vote against Barack Obama, and less than a quarter of those questioned indicated that they would vote to re-elect the President. It is an appropriate time in which to pose this question: Why have Obama and his supporters fallen so far and so fast?

We must, I think, begin before the beginning. The Obama campaign was predicated on a fraud. With a skill that was breathtaking, Barack Obama managed during that campaign to signal to the left within the Democratic Party with a wink and a nod that he was their man and that he meant business — that he really intended to “transform” America. To those in the middle and on the right who are ashamed of the nation’s historic sins in matters of race, he offered absolution, and he promised that the penance that they would have to perform after leaving the confessional would not be harsh. He was not, he said, a tax-and-spend liberal.

I was not taken in. Late in 2008, after reviewing the page proofs of Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift, I persuaded my editor to allow me to add the following to the book:

Once again, as in the 1920s, rational administration has failed us. As on that other occasion, the Federal Reserve Board and the Department of the Treasury pursued over an extended period under more than one administration an easy-money policy bound in the end to give rise to “irrational exuberance” in the markets and to a bubble followed by a catastrophic decline in prices and a collapse of the credit markets. And, to make matters worse, we responded to this set of circumstances precisely as we did on that earlier occasion — by electing a president and choosing a Congress intent on dramatically increasing the scale and scope of the administrative state.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, auto bailout, Barack Obama, cap-and-trade, Charles Grassley
Posted Jan 16th 2010 at 6:08 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Congress, Earmarks, Economics, Featured Story, Healthcare, History, News, Obama, Politics, State Politics, Tax Reform, Tea Party, federal spending | 59998130 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/prahe/2010/01/16/obamas-first-year/Obama%27s+First+Year2010-01-16+14%3A08%3A30Paul+A.++Rahe

More Christmas Goodies for Sen. Nelson

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Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, bribery, ObamaCare, Pelosicare
Posted Dec 23rd 2009 at 6:41 am in Congress, Healthcare, Politics | 5111444 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cmuir/2009/12/23/more-christmas-goodies-for-sen-nelson/More+Christmas+Goodies+for+Sen.+Nelson2009-12-23+14%3A41%3A19Chris+Muir

Obama and Democrat Leadership: Out of Touch and Desperate

President Obama’s meetings at the Senate on Sunday, much like his visit to Copenhagen this week, are not indicators of inevitability; they are portents of panic.  The reports coming out of the closed door, Democrats-only, meeting of internal divisions that are still irreconcilable, despite the high rhetoric of historic moment, only make the point more vividly: can you say “desperation”?

The sensible Democrats know they are in trouble.  They know the American people have lost confidence that the Administration and Congress share their priorities.

While polls consistently show that Americans are increasingly concerned about jobs, reviving the economy, and managing our deficits, the Democrats fixate on health care, a relatively low priority for most Americans and anathema for many in this form.  The reforms the Democrats push are themselves unpopular, and for good reason.  Americans know that a government takeover of health care will diminish the quality of care, reduce our ability to control our treatment options, and drive up the premium costs for many Americans.  It’s not just the health care system that will suffer, but proposed reforms will also cripple one of the few sectors that have been creating jobs during the recession, create multiple new taxes and penalties, and further hamper the economy by creating massive new debt and entitlements.

(more…)

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Tags: cap-and-trade, carbon emissions, Copenhagen conference, deficits, economic recession
Posted Dec 8th 2009 at 7:23 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics, Tea Party | 42678130 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/hhiggins/2009/12/08/obama-and-democrat-leadership-out-of-touch-and-desperate/Obama+and+Democrat+Leadership%3A+Out+of+Touch+and+Desperate2009-12-08+14%3A23%3A43Heather++Higgins

Saturday Open Thread: Party Crashers Edition

President Obama’s first official State Dinner, in honor of the Indian Prime Minister, was crashed by two Northern Virginia socialites. Crashing an event at the White House is, um, shall we say, difficult.

That these two–Reality TV star-wannabes, natch–came within a handshake of POTUS and the Indian Prime Minister is astonishing. Stay tuned, as we think there must be more to this story.

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Tags: Ari Emanuel, Barack Obama, Michaele Salahi, Rahm Emanuel, Tareq Salahi
Posted Nov 28th 2009 at 5:31 am in Open Threads | 3788294 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2009/11/28/saturday-open-thread-party-crashers-edition/Saturday+Open+Thread%3A+Party+Crashers+Edition2009-11-28+12%3A31%3A27Publius

Who is Steve Max: Ward Churchill Meets Rahm Emanuel

From the archives of the extreme progressive left comes this little ditty written in 2001 by SDS founding member, and DSA Vice Chair, Steve Max.

In November 2001, just 8 weeks after the devastating terrorist attacks on New York and DC, Steve Max delivered a speech to the progressive “USAction Delegation Assembly”, on the topic of taking advantage of the new crisis as an opportunity to advance a progressive agenda.

The speech reads like Ward “little Eichmanns” Churchill and Rahm “never let a good crisis go to waste” Emanuel, all rolled up into one offensive Progressive rant.

Why does any of this matter? Because Steve Max, as a co-founder of Citizen Action (which later became USAction) and the Midwest Academy, is one of the people who likely trained SEIU’s Andy Stern, Rahm Emanuel, and even President Bracak Obama, in the Alinsky method of organizing toward revolution.

Mr. Max makes a couple of worthy points in his speech, however they are lost in a sea of moral equivalence and cynical political opportunism. Just 8 weeks after the deaths of 3000+ innocent people, who’s only crime was that they were judged as “infidel” by their islamist attackers, Steve Max opines to the progressive community:

The Chinese character for crisis, they say, is a combination of two other characters standing for danger and opportunity. We are now in such a period of crisis. There is great danger but there is also opportunity to advance to a progressive program.

(more…)

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Tags: 9/11 Steve Max, Citizen Action, president barack obama, Progressives, Rahm Emanuel
Posted Nov 8th 2009 at 1:38 pm in History, Obama | 2617043 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amarcus/2009/11/08/who-is-steve-max-ward-churchill-meets-rahm-emanuel/Who+is+Steve+Max%3A+Ward+Churchill+Meets+Rahm+Emanuel2009-11-08+20%3A38%3A05Andrew++Marcus

Obama Presidency: Bullying from the Pulpit

There used to be a certain level of decorum incumbent upon the office of the President of the United States.  After all, the office is more than the man that occupies it.  It’s also more than his politics or platform.  In many ways the Presidency is the embodiment of America.  It’s the face we put forward to the world.  With the election of President Obama the presidency has also awakened dreams in many children who never believed the White House was attainable.

The mandates of the office dictate how those entrusted with its power should act.  The Obama White House has failed to maintain the high standards of this office.  Rather than operating in a dignified manner the staff has desecrated the office by resorting to old-school Chicago-style politics.  That is to say they’ve used the Presidency to reward their friends and single out and attack their enemies.

(more…)

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Tags: Anita Dunn, Barack Obama, Ben Shapiro, Buffy Wicks. Office of Public Engagement, Chicago Way
Posted Oct 28th 2009 at 6:00 am in Congress, Culture, Featured Story, Media Criticism, Obama, Politics | 2174680 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cberg/2009/10/28/obama-presidency-bullying-from-the-pulpit/Obama+Presidency%3A+Bullying+from+the+Pulpit2009-10-28+13%3A00%3A13Chris+++Berg

ObamaCare Box Score — Conservatives 1 – Liberals 0

The first game in a long series of Obamacare battles is complete and the liberals lost Game 1 by 13 votes.  The Senate voted against a procedural motion to debate the so-called “Doc Fix” bill Wednesday.  Just as Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers has taken a beating in the media for leaving Game 5 of the National League Championship Series early to take a shower and hitting a mere .250 for the series, Senator Harry Reid has taken a beating in the press for marching the Democrat Caucus into a losing vote in the first battle over Obamacare.

A bipartisan coalition of senators concerned about spending stopped Senators Reid from bringing “Doc Fix” to a vote with 13 Democrats siding with the entire Republican Caucus.  Democrat Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bill Nelson of Florida, Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virgina, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Independent Democrat Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut all opposed the motion to start debate on the bill.

The strategy to pass the “Doc Fix” outside of Obamacare in an attempt to buy off doctors groups’ support for Obamacare was documented in the media.  The Hill reported earlier this week that “the White House and Democratic leaders are offering doctors a deal:  They’ll freeze cuts in Medicare payments to doctors in exchange for doctors’ support of healthcare reform.”  Clearly the majority of senators would not go along with this strategy because the $247 billion price tag for the bill was too high to buy Obamacare. 

(more…)

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Tags: American Medical Association, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Doc Fix, Harry Reid
Posted Oct 23rd 2009 at 7:15 am in Congress, Healthcare, Politics | 1971019 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bdarling/2009/10/23/obamacare-box-score-conservatives-1-liberals-0/ObamaCare+Box+Score+--+Conservatives+1+%E2%80%93+Liberals+02009-10-23+14%3A15%3A04Brian+Darling

Axelrod and Emanuel Help Shape ACORN Coverage?

1.  Fox News is not really a legitimate news source because it has a ‘point of view’ and

2.  We encourage all legitimate news networks to stop treating them as if they are legitimate.

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Tags: ABC, Andrew Breitbart, AP, Barack Obama, CBS
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 at 11:00 am in ACORN, Media Criticism, Politics | 1945889 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sright/2009/10/22/axelrod-and-emanuel-help-shape-acorn-coverage/Axelrod+and+Emanuel+Help+Shape+ACORN+Coverage%3F2009-10-22+18%3A00%3A48Larry++O%26%2339%3BConnor

ACORN and SEIU: Anatomy of a Shakedown

Across America community organizations operate in impoverished, disadvantaged, low-income or minority communities. No matter the phrase used to describe the special interest, a group exists to represent it. Often these organizations initially have good intentions and seek to give back and serve the community in which they operate. When government money, power and influence become part of the equation however, lofty principles tend to fall by the wayside. Other organizations are created to cause chaos and disrupt the system.

The Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was perceived by many as a well-intended organization, but it appears that the association that Wade Rathke founded was increasingly driven to cause chaos and disrupt the system whenever it could.

BEFORE the Dale Rathke embezzlement finally became last year, John Fund, in “Grapes of Rathke: ACORN, a liberal activist group, comes under scrutiny. About time,” reported: (more…)

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Tags: ACORN, Booz Allen, Carlyle Group, Community Reinvestment Act, Dale Rathke
Posted Sep 27th 2009 at 5:30 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Featured Story, Obama, Politics | 930271 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amoncrief/2009/09/27/acorn-and-seiu-anatomy-of-a-shakedown/ACORN+and+SEIU%3A+Anatomy+of+a+Shakedown2009-09-27+12%3A30%3A58Anita+MonCrief

And You Thought This Was All About Health Care…

The all-consuming debate over health care has effectively sucked all of the oxygen out of the policy world leaving little room for discussion, let alone action on other major elements of the progressive agenda—or so it would seem.

The mammoth bills winding their way through Congress will certainly upend our health care sector, if they are enacted. Little known, however, are several provisions that will provide an enormous pay-off to one of the Democrat parties most loyal constituency—Big Labor.

The Obama campaign spent much of 2008 writing checks to various left-leaning interest groups who saw the opportunity to cash in on long-standing priorities that would finally be achievable with a Democratic Congress and a liberal president.  Now, these groups are finding that no one is available to cash these checks as long as the administration is laser focused on reconfiguring one sixth of the American economy.

But organized labor has sought to turn this situation into a new opportunity. By throwing themselves into the health care debate and mobilizing their resources behind passage of the Democrat proposal, labor has been rewarded with the ability to shape the content of the health care legislation and to begin to collect on its political debt. (more…)

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Tags: AFL-CIO, Card Check, collective bargaining, Democrats, EFCA
Posted Sep 10th 2009 at 12:08 am in Healthcare, News, Politics | 206103 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dobrien/2009/09/10/and-you-thought-this-was-all-about-health-care/And+You+Thought+This+Was+All+About+Health+Care...2009-09-10+07%3A08%3A15Doug+O%26%2339%3BBrien

‘Big Government’ Rises Again

n7h6ycxmg5In 1995, President Bill Clinton stood before the nation and proclaimed, “The era of big government is over.” The following year, the federal budget deficit stood at 1.4% of GDP. Thirteen years later, in 2008, the deficit had doubled, to just over 3% of GDP. This year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the federal budget deficit will equal 11.4% of GDP.

As George Will would say, “Well.”

This is the real source of our “summer of discontent.” Yes, millions of Americans spent the month of August holding Tea Parties, attending town halls, organizing, marching and protesting against ObamaCare, i.e. Congressional and Administration proposals to reconstruct the entire health care sector. But to suggest that health care alone is at the root of this backlash is to miss the forest for the trees. To paraphrase Democrat strategist James Carville, “It’s the big government, stupid.”

Since last September when the financial markets stumbled, we’ve seen a Wall Street bailout, government takeovers of AIG, Citigroup, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, GM, Chrysler, and numerous banks. The Federal Reserve has opened its discount window to almost all-comers and has taken the unprecedented step of aggressively buying up the federal government’s own debt. Congress rushed through a “stimulus to nowhere,” moved closer to a “cap-and-trade” remake of the energy sector and openly talked about higher taxes and more regulation. (more…)

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Tags: AIG, American Revolution, banks, Bill Clinton, Boston Tea Party
Posted Sep 9th 2009 at 5:26 pm in Congress, Culture, Economics, Featured Story, History, Justice/Legal, Media Criticism, News, Obama, Politics | 98274 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mikeflynn/2009/09/09/big-government-rises-again/%27Big+Government%27+Rises+Again2009-09-10+00%3A26%3A17Mike+Flynn