Now retailers ask for a bailout, disguised as a tax holiday. I hope Obama tells 'em, "No!" You should, too.

Look, I favored the bank bailout, although not the kind it turned into — with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen overseeing a blind giveaway.

He's dumping taxpayer money into banks without controls or tracking to determine how the money is used. Consequently hard-earned taxpayer money is not being used to finances homes or businesses. Instead, it's being used to let banks go on an acquisition spree and give big bonuses to greedy bank executives.

That's reverse income distribution

Paulsen is aiding and abetting the process of stealing from the squeezed middle class and the poor to make the rich richer. Some ambitious prosecutor ought to find a way to slam Paulsen in the pokey for betraying America's trust.

I also favor the automobile industry bailout, although I'm waiting to see if President Elect Obama ties a sufficient number of strings to every buck — strings with the other end tied to pollution controls, electric cars, hybrid cars, exciting new designs, and to limits on the building of SUVs.

Now retailers try to
jump on the gravy train

Now retailers have begun yelling, "Me too! Me too!" That's an outrage. I'd rather see money invested in American manufacturing than in the sale — at retail stores — of foreign-made goods. The American economy has to come first. Sure the retailers are hurting. We're all hurting. But the retailer demand is just an attempt to grab taxpayer money.

The bailout is disguised as a "tax holiday." According to "gimme money too" plan proposed by the National Retail Foundation, states would forget about their own sales taxes at specific times and then...

...the federal government would reimburse the 45 states that have sales taxes for the lost revenue, and would provide the five states without a sales tax (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon) with revenue approximating the sales tax reimbursement that would be received by states with similar population.

The money may go to the states (with a windfall for states that have no sales taxes) but it all boils down to a giant gift to Wal-Mart and other chain retailers. Those are those wonderful folks who squeeze the few American manufacturers who remain to the breaking point, and contribute to the trend of exporting American manufacturing jobs to cheap labor nations like Pakistan, China and India.

Ask your Senator and Congressional Representative to tell the NRF to stuff their greedy idea in their cash registers and choke on it.