[url=http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080925_they_say_the_bailout_is_necessary_but_is_it_constitutional/]They Claim the Bailout Is Necessary, But Is It Constitutional?
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By Stanley Kutler

Our “conservative” ideologues have steadily advanced their free-market myths during the past 40 years, insisting on minimalist government. Now those voices are quiet as we see the fallout of their laissez-faire notions. But once they reinvigorate financial institutions by transferring their huge debts to the taxpayer, we can be certain they will return.

Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative favorite, has posited “originalism” in his notions of judicial power. Anyone who believes in a “living Constitution,” he said, is an “idiot.” Well then, John Marshall, our first great chief justice, his colleagues and those folks firmly wedded to our history (real conservatives?) are idiots. Maybe even Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, whose bailout bill certainly is “broad construction” of the Constitution at its most extreme.

Paulson and his bailout accomplices propose the nationalization (what else is it?) of Wall Street’s reckless debts, actions that dwarf the excesses of the Gilded Age and the 1920s. The government will assume the bad debts of our financial “industry,” a remedy that will restore “free markets” and “normalcy.” All is forgiven; unfortunately, all is also forgotten. It is an “investment,” Paulson said—without irony.

The only alternative, we are told, is unthinkable. The only? That remains to be seen—alas, even offered. Sen. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., said that before signing off on the bill he wanted “to make sure we’ve exhausted the alternatives.” Pure congressional blather; Paulson never answered.
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