Bush's Cronies Spread the Wealth Around ... to Corporations

During the campaign, Barack Obama provoked a media flurry and right-wing outrage over his comment to Joe the Plumber about "spreading the wealth around." They told us that this view was contrary to the American Way, that this was socialism.

Given all the concern over Obama's ideas about spreading the wealth, it is remarkable how little attention is being given to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke's much more ambitious effort to spread the wealth. They are putting in practice measures that swamp any plans put forward by Obama in the presidential campaign; yet, this massive government redistribution of wealth is drawing almost no attention whatsoever.

The basic story is that the Treasury and Fed together now control several trillion dollars of bailout funds. This money is being used with almost no accountability, especially with the Fed's portion of the bailout, which is by far the bulk of the funds.