Are Taxpayer Dollars Really Funding the Bailouts and Stimulus?

When the conservatives scream about the stress on our taxpayers over the bailout (TARP) and the more recent stimulus, they, once again, are showing off their ignorance. Here's an article, from Motley Fool, on where the money is really coming from.

Taxpayers' rage over bailouts, TARPs, and daring housing rescue plans continues unabated. The nation's ire seems largely centered on the idea that our tax dollars are directly rescuing Wall Street banks like Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and subsidizing underwater homeowners.

Rabble rabble rabble
The problem with this argument is that our tax dollars have already been spoken for, and have been for quite some time. According to The Heritage Foundation, from 1965 to 2007, government tax revenues grew $1.9 trillion, but spending rose $2.1 trillion, resulting in average annual deficits of $167.8 billion on an inflation-adjusted basis. So even before the bailouts began, formal income tax dollars alone didn't fully pay for the government's spending. It's somewhat fascinating that it's taken us taxpayers some forty years to finally demand fiscal responsibility in Washington.

Read more - and find out where the money is really coming from - by clicking here. Hint - as investors have bailed out of the stock market to the tune of a trillion dollars, they've had to put that money somewhere.

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