Poor Richard's News

As the populists, media and politicians pretend to be outraged by the AIG bonuses that they were contractually obligated to pay, let's not forget what got us here to begin with: government intervention in private industry. Despite overwhelming opposition from virtually every constituency, the aptly named "porkulus" bill, which gave billions to AIG still managed to eek through the legislature and onto Obama's desk...or some table in Denver, where he was vacationing after a few weeks on the job. Be that as it may, my representative, Jim Cooper, who claims he read (with perfect comprehension I can only assume) all 1,100 pages in 13 overnight hours must have either 1) lied to me about reading it or 2) not cared that the executives were going to get paid the ostentatious bonuses. Why? Because Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and others took out the part of the bill that would have limited AIG bonuses just before the bill was handed to him and others on the hill. Either way he and every other representative who voted for this unprecedented spending bill should be held accountable. We should be outraged, but not at AIG. We should be outraged at our incompetent government. Our founding fathers warned us against too much government intervention and as history has proven over and over, they were right.