Big Insurance wants in on tax money giveaway

It's hard to believe, but federal officials are worried that the $700 billion that Congress gave them to rescue Wall Street fatcats may not be enough.

I'm not kidding. This cruel joke has a new punch line in insurance companies now crying to the U.S. Treasury that it needs stock in their firms purchased by the American taxpayer. That's because the insurance companies bought into the nation's bad homes loans, too, for quick profit.

The Treasury just got finished buying $250 billion in stock in nine American banks, including Bank of America which just had finished purchasing an ailing financial institution. So one week it bought up an institution only to then turn into a beggar the following one, as long as taxpayers were picking up the bill.

Yet now these banks are refusing to loan money to ease the credit crunch in return for all the money the federal government flooded into them. You'd think Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would have asked for a guarantee to lend from these banks before investing in them. But no, like former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, he expected free market forces to clean out the garbage. They didn't. And they won't now without new, onerous regulatory demands.

But King Henry isn't keen on bothering his brethren. Instead, he is now planning to invest your money into the livelihoods of these insurance executives who made bad decisions and put greed first. More industries are preparing to line up for a handout. And your congressional representatives -- Democrats and Republicans -- have given him blanket authority to do so, like that afforded a monarch.

Our founding fathers would be shocked.

Like Britney Spears in her love life, Secretary Paulson just can't say "no" to his own kind.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells AP that an economic stimulus plan putting your own money back into your own hands is not politically possible this year. You'll just have to wait until all the fatcats of Wall Street, the banks, the automakers and now the insurers are rescued.

Your loss of half of your retirement or other savings don't matter. Neither does the failure of federal actions to turn around Wall Street fortunes or those of the economy. Tens of thousands of people continue to be laid off. Home foreclosures mount as more and more families are forced to live out of their cars. Demand at food banks is skyrocketing.

This tragic list goes on and on, as does the line of those who created this financial mess crying to be rescued ahead of you with your money. And now, the Treasury may fully spend the $700 billion sooner than expected.

That means it'll be asking for more as you get along with less.

To read on for more specifics, go to: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122487244838367321.html