President Obama, in his attempt to appear as a populist, has called for a tax on who seem to be the only people succeeding in the economy: Wall Street Bankers. He claims that he just wants "the people's money back," but the fact of the matter is that the banks, by and large, have paid back the money with interest that some of them were forced by the government to take in the first place. Even Obama supporter Warren Buffet admits that the government has made money off the banks.
As with all taxes, the government will take money out of the marketplace and redistribute it in a way that will not help the economy recover. The institutions that have not paid back the government are the auto companies and FannieMae and FreddieMac, which are the quasi-governmental institutions that started this recession by giving out loans to unqualified borrowers at the government's behest.
Instead of continuing his policies of wealth redistribution that have failed throughout history and the past year, the president should focus on allowing the marketplace, not the government that he admits the people don't trust, to guide the nation to recovery, as it did in the 1980s.
Michael Gardella
freshman
Knott Hall
Jan. 28
