Anthony Randazzo, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation, writes in a recent edition of the newsletter Privatization Watch that federal bailouts to date of banks, automakers, borrowers, state governments, and other institutions add up to a staggering $10.8 trillion in taxpayer obligations. The figure includes dozens of individual programs and interventions, including but not limited to:
? $1.5 trillion to insure certain bank debts.
? $1.8 trillion to shore up the commercial-paper market.
? $787 billion for the ?stimulus.?
? $500 billion to insure non-interest-bearing deposit accounts.
? $300 billion for FHA mortgage relief.
? $1 trillion for the Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility program (TALF).
? $900 billion for the Term Auction Facility (TAF) lending program.
? $700 billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
? $600 billion for a program (MMIFF) to insure money market mutual funds.
As we have learned numerous times in the past, you know American liberty and free enterprise are in peril when you start seeing government bureaucrats creating new acronyms.
