Housing Bailout Signed With No Fanfare

The $300 billion housing bailout was signed by the President today in a ceremony that had no celebration or hoopla:

Only a few aides and administration officials were present, including Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Steve Preston and James B. Lockhart III, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The White House announced the signing by e-mail moments later.

The bill, the biggest overhaul of housing law in decades, provides a lifeline for an estimated 400,000 homeowners facing foreclosure, and provides assurances to the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose books are loaded with bad mortgages.

Usually such a bill signing is accompanied by a self-congratulatory ceremony, with souvenir pens for congressional leaders and for members, senators and chairmen who spearheaded the legislation.

Sad, really. It seems just yesterday we had a Republican in office that would say things like:

• The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
• The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
• No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!
• Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
• Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Now we have a Republican that signs huge bailouts without really wanting the people to see him do it.

As I said yesterday, we are standing on the bridge to dependence and some days, it seems like we are being pushed across it.