Miller Speaks To Murkowski’s Reversal On TARP

/in /by
Anchorage, Alaska — Joe Miller, candidate for the United States Senate from Alaska, believes Senator Lisa Murkowski is part of the big-government problem in Washington.  Murkowski, in a recent interview with the Anchorage Daily News, said she regrets her vote to bail out the big banks and Wall Street. Following the passage of TARP in the Senate, she said, “I believe this bill puts us on the right track.” She now sees things differently. Just this week she rolled out a new radio ad touting her failed attempt to recall the TARP funds as evidence that she is standing up to the President’s big-government, big-spending agenda.
 
A key component of leadership is being able to see the implications of the choices we make. “We all have 20-20 hindsight,” Miller said. He continued, “The real question comes down to political philosophy. When you act based on the belief that more government is the solution to almost any problem, TARP and most any other program government can conceive follows from that belief.” Miller, who has a master’s degree in economics, stated, “I am a free-market conservative. I believe in limited government, personal liberty, and personal responsibility. It’s really that simple. I would not have voted for TARP. It is imperative that we get it right the first time.”
 
Despite the Senator’s new-found “conservatism,” Miller is not ready to buy into the rhetoric. After all, TARP is just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to the $700 billion TARP bill, Murkowski has voted for:
  • The bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ($160B) – which Bloomberg News Service says could ultimately cost up to $1 trillion. Many economists believe these government subsidized entities, by creating a false market for sub-prime loans, did much to cause the mortgage meltdown that led to the financial crisis in 2008.
  • A $108 billion slush fund for the IMF to help bail out Europe;
  • The creation and expansion of entitlement programs running in the hundreds of billions over the next decade;
  • Seven of President Obama’s major appropriations bills that her Republican colleagues voted against, including Obama’s second stimulus package ($149B).
 
In addition she co-sponsored cap and trade legislation that, according to Fox News would have cost us $1 trillion over the first ten years; refused specific provisions to curb wasteful government spending; and aided and abetted illegal aliens by refusing support for a physical barrier across the southern border (estimated cost of illegal presence in the US is $113 billion annually).
 
“If that’s what she calls standing up to Obama’s reckless spending, I’d hate to see her when she’s reaching out to the President and Congressional Democrats,” Miller said. He added, “The claim that Senator Murkowski is standing up against wasteful government spending just doesn’t pass the red face test.”
 
###