The Opinion Blog

Stimulus For State Longleaf

Sunday's editorial recognizes the restoration of local pines lost in April's wildfires through federal stimulus money.

Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve longleaf pine trees lost to the devastating April wildfire will be replaced with some of the money in a $1.74 million federal stimulus grant to the S.C. Forestry Commission.

Dr. DeMint's Sugar Pill, Part 2: Unfunded, inadequate and unambitious

Sunday's editorial adds practical criticisms to Saturday's conceptual critique of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint's "Health Care Freedom Plan:"

As we explained Saturday, the most serious weakness of Sen. Jim DeMint's "Health Care Freedom Plan" is its lack of strong mechanisms to control out-of-control medical inflation. But within the plan itself, specific elements also have deficiencies of their own.

Stimulus war drags on

Sunday's editorial bemoans the governor's continued obstinance on what we believe to be a flawed opposition to taking $350 million in federal stimulus money.

The Sun News has long commended Gov. Mark Sanford for his fealty to fiscal conservatism, while decrying his preference for principles and theory over the practicalities of real-life governance. This week, as he and the state legislature head to federal court over the use of $350 million in federal stimulus money to shore up next year's shrunken budget, we continue to shake our heads.

Channel your anger toward D.C., not Wall Street

Ripped from the wires ... Cal Thomas adapts an aphorism made famous by the first Mayor Daley to the financial crisis:

By Cal Thomas

One of the more familiar sayings in politics is "don't get angry, get even.''

The anger caused by using millions in taxpayer bailout money to pay "retention'' bonuses to current and former AIG employees and to fund banks that mostly won't tell what they did with the money is an object lesson for all of us. It offers taxpayers an opportunity to "get even'' with those who have violated the U.S. Constitution, helped put our nation in peril and spent us into economic servitude to the Chinese.

AIG bonuses surtax: Justice or mobocracy?

Here's a little brain-teaser for those who have retreated indoors from the pine pollen this weekend: Did the U.S. House handle the AIG bonuses situation appropriately on Thursday?

'Get it' on Wall Street, Mr. Geithner, or begone

Ripped from the wires ... When the president's staunchest supporters, such as columnist Eugene Robinson, turn on the treasury secretary, you know he's really a public liability:

By EUGENE ROBINSON

President Obama's claim that Timothy Geithner faces a more daunting set of challenges than any Treasury secretary since Alexander Hamilton may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Geithner may indeed be the hardest-working man in Washington. But in order to survive, let alone succeed, he's going to have to make a more convincing case that he's part of the solution and not part of the problem.

Take GM, Chrysler off taxpayer life support

Ripped from the wires ... Cal Thomas argues that further federal loans to GM and Chrysler would amount to good money after bad:

By Cal Thomas

General Motors made my first car. It was a 1955 two-tone Chevrolet with stick shift and black tires. It had an AM radio and air conditioning, if I hand-cranked the window down in summer. It came with bench seats, the better to have your date close to you. I bought it used (this was before cars were "pre-owned'') in 1961. My Dad co-signed the $750 note, which I paid.

Let bankruptcy court sort out GM's problems

From the afternoon e-mail ... An analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights argues against channeling more government loan money to General Motors:

By Thomas A. Bowden

General Motors, having sucked up $9.4 billion of taxpayer cash since Christmas, now desperately craves the remaining $4 billion authorized by President Bush for disbursement in February.

Stimulus the best hope for stalling out the recession

Today's editorial argues (without great enthusiasm) that mounting a responsible stimulus plan would be a better course for Congress than doing nothing to intervene in our dying economy:

What's the difference between pork-barrel spending and economic stimulus? Economic stimulus is pork-barrel spending with an important purpose: increasing the speed with which money circulates through American communities, thereby thawing their frozen economies and stalling out the recession.

Wall Street entitlement menality bites taxpayers again

Ripped from the bizwire ... Bank of America is forced to fire former Merrill-Lynch CEO after word got out that he paid out $15 billion in bonuses after Merrill took $10 billion from the TARP:

By STEPHEN BERNARD and IEVA M. AUGSTUMS

AP Business Writers

NEW YORK (AP) -- Media reports say former Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO John Thain has resigned from Bank of America Corp.

CNBC and The Wall Street Journal's Web site are reporting that Thain resigned after a meeting of Bank of America executives Thursday morning. The reports followed news that Merrill had moved up its year-end bonuses, doling out cash just days before it was officially acquired by Bank of America on Jan. 1.