{"id":2186,"date":"2009-01-04T13:05:51","date_gmt":"2009-01-04T18:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/?p=2186"},"modified":"2009-01-04T13:05:51","modified_gmt":"2009-01-04T18:05:51","slug":"isnt-this-how-the-whole-mess-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2009\/01\/04\/isnt-this-how-the-whole-mess-started\/","title":{"rendered":"Isn&#8217;t this How the Whole Mess Started?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I suppose we should be surprised:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB123068292824744097.html\">multiple<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/12\/30\/AR2008123001133.html\">reports<\/a>, the Treasury Department has allocated <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB123068292824744097.html\">nearly $10 billion more<\/a> in funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) than Congress has officially released, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153effectively making <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/12\/30\/AR2008123001133.html\">more promises<\/a> than it can afford to keep.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wonkroom.thinkprogress.org\/2008\/12\/31\/second-tarp\/\">More<\/a>, if you care to laugh\/cry a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever I see things like this, I think back to my work with a Federal grants program in the mid-90s, where service programs focusing on unimportant little things like classroom assistants, community policing, and homeless shelters ground to an immediate halt because Congress was busy playing budget politics.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, we knew that the money was coming one way or another, but not a single program received a commitment nor did a dollar flow until it was <em>actually authorized by law<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, it was only millions of dollars at issue, and didn&#8217;t benefit the right kind of people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I suppose we should be surprised: According to multiple reports, the Treasury Department has allocated nearly $10 billion more in funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) than Congress has officially released, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153effectively making more promises than it can afford to keep.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d More, if you care to laugh\/cry a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever I see things [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2187,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions\/2187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}