Boehner Labels TARP Opponents “Knuckledraggers”

Fri, 08/17/2012 - 10:20am | posted by Jeremy Kolassa

boehner

Over at RealClearPolitics, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner has just called opponents to the 2007-2008 bailouts as “knuckledraggers,” by saying that Paul Ryan—who did vote for TARP—is not one.

Uh-huh.

Did Boehner just have a Joe Biden moment?

We can take this a few ways. We can first take it that it was genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake, and never meant to say that. But we can also take it as a real “Kinsley Gaffe,” defined as: “when a politician tells the truth - some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.”

What is this obvious truth, then? It’s not all that obvious, but it is the truth: the Republicans are not at all committed to a free market system, and instead want to wallow and embrace crony capitalism. They love taking money from taxpayers and giving it to their friends and cronies who run major banks and industries, giving them preferential treatment in the laws they craft and unfair advantages in the marketplace.

Oh, and “we had to do it to save our economy”? Yeah right. Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest investment bank in the nation four years ago, collapsed in September 2008. The end result? It’s leftovers got bought out by Barclays and Nomura, and nothing else happened. There was no disaster. So all of this is just cover for the truth: he likes to rewards cronies and punish enemies.

How free market is that?

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  • Tagged: Bailout Capitalism Conservatives Corporate Welfare Corporatism cronyism Economy fiscal conservatives free market free markets GOP Joe Biden john boehner knuckledraggers Lehman Brothers Limited Government Recession Republican Spending Statism TARP Too Big To Fail

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