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At the Constitutional Convention, Charles Pinckney, Governeur Morris and Ben Franklin pushed to deny Senators any salary whatsoever. They wished to prevent what had evolved in England, where men sought positions in government to enrich themselves and cronies. A Senate of older, self-made, wealthy men would be less prone to corruption and more resistant to wild populist ideas from the House.

We are now stuck with three term Congressmen, aka Senators. These self imagined wise men, are actually petty dictators who subtly feather their nests at the expense of the people they are supposed to serve.

REFERENCE TARP was not designed to be a pool of money available for bailout of just anything that didn't move, like a couple of bankrupt unionized companies in the automobile industry. It was very specific in its purpose to provide liquidity to frozen banking and financial system and stave off the run on the banks (attack on the financial system, by proxy) and allow the 'netting' of the [frozen] assets on the books of financial institutions, in the aftermath of fall of Lehman Bros and run on trillions of dollars in the money market funds in the consequent "breaking the buck" by private Reserve Primary Fund managed by Bruce Bent.

The $700B TARP Bailout is now being called, "A MASTERFUL DECEIT." Then-Treasury Secy Paulson, et al, may not have pulled a fast one when he testified in favor of the TARP before Congress----but Congress' phony outrage is a puzzlement. If HR 1424 was a 'MASTERFUL DECEIT' then CONGRESS didn't do its job.

TITLE I—TROUBLED ASSETS RELIEF PROGRAM (required 'Congressional Oversight' sections listed)
Sec. 101. Purchases of troubled assets.
Sec. 102. Insurance of troubled assets.
Sec. 103. Considerations.
Sec. 104. Financial Stability Oversight Board.
Sec. 105. Reports.
Sec. 107. Contracting procedures.
Sec. 108. Conflicts of interest.
Sec. 111. Executive compensation and corporate governance.
Sec. 116. Oversight and audits.
Sec. 118. Funding.
Sec. 119. Judicial review and related matters.
Sec. 121. Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Sec. 125. Congressional Oversight Panel.
Sec. 127. Cooperation with the FBI.
Sec. 129. Disclosures on exercise of loan authority.

In HR 1424, there are enough rules, regs and CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT REQUIRED that not one Thin Dime should have been 'misspent.' So if anything crooked did go on Congress should look in a mirror. They dropped the ball -- again.

Excellent and brilliantly written. You’re right and it is a concept brought to us by our crypto-Marxists. We cannot trust the rich and we must hate them because they’re all political capitalists, no?

The truth is that political entrepreneurs thrive in a socialistic environment. Our Founders were rich guys and a smaller government loses the natural playground of corruption found in overreaching regulation and explosive budgets.

We’ve got to undo some of these Amendments and get back to Constitutional principles. I don’t know how to do it when AP American Government classes denigrate the Constitution and celebrate the Philosophy of Big Government. How do we breakthrough the government education monopoly and retrain Americans in basic, God-given liberty?