Agreeing with the Republicans?

Every now and then, because of the alignment of the stars, something happens where I may agree with a Conservative Republican. Trust me, it doesn't happen often, but it sometimes does happen.

On Tuesday, Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky attacked the Henry Paulson plan for the biggest financial bailout since the Great Depression, as "un-American." Not only that, he went on to say:

"I know there are problems in the financial markets, and I share a lot of the same concerns that our witnesses do. However, the Paulson plan will not fix those problems. The Paulson plan will not help struggling homeowners pay their mortgages. The Paulson plan will not bring a stop to the slide in home prices. But the Paulson plan will spend 700 billion taxpayer dollars to prop up and clean up the balance sheets of Wall Street. This massive bailout is not the solution, it is financial socialism, and it is un-American."

And I couldn't agree more.

Tonight, Bush came on television to try gently talk people through the mess. It's interesting to watch an idiot actually be condescending, but it actually happened.

So while some form of this plan will probably pass, I do agree with this Republican from Kentucky (of all places), that this bail out is financial socialism. But this is even worse, because as Mike Bloomberg pointed out, they have managed to privatize the profits, but socialize the losses.

And it's soooo ironic that the plan is being proposed by Mr. Free Market himself, G.W. Bush. For all their hatred for growing government, it's interesting that the Republicans have gotten very good at it.