SEE WHAT YOU’VE STARTED?!

Calculated Risk posts about two new breeds of panhandlers coming to the taxpayer spigot (I don’t know how taxpayer spigot became abbreviated as TARP, but oh well).

First, we have insurers (not really a new breed if you don’t treat AIG as an exceptional case).  CR says:

“The AP reports: 4 insurers ask government to let them acquire thrifts so they can receive bailout funds“

Next in line we have whole cities!  CR says:

“From the Mercury News: San Jose mayor seeks slice of bailout pie“

Key quote from the source article:

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said “he would seek 2 percent of the bailout, or $14 billion, for San Jose — an eye-popping figure, given that the city’s entire annual budget is $3.3 billion.”

Bravo!  Four to five years of the cities budget would be required as a handout for San Jose.  They should make it an even $4 billion so that San Jose has enough left over to construct an appropriate monument to commemorate this monumental mismanagement of funds.

One interesting point from the article, as well as CR’s post/excerpt, is that much of the “required” money would be going towards road work and rapid transit.  Have we found a backdoor to forcing a revival of the Public Works Administration?  By work of poetry or coincidence, the PWA spent $3.3 billion as well.  Wow.

CR has another older post that discusses a few more cities with the begging hand thrust out in Washington’s direction, as well as more details about one of the insurers.

I think the more obvious solution for the government would be to setup a new Department of Taxpayer Buggery, run by unelected officials with close ties to major-campaign-donor industries, to administer the doling out of federal funds (can Neel Kashkari have two titles?).  It’s only logical, and I’m sure we could keep the administrative overhead below the amount of the funds distributed.  Initially, anyways.

… and the cow goes moo