"How a Poorer America Is Holding Back the Recovery"

[WhiskeyGirl]

Any wonder why poverty is increasing?  Is it the changing of the income guidelines?  Continued bad policy in Washington?

"The longer people are out of work, the more likely that they will fall into poverty," notes Robert Greenstein, head of the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Anger over TARP

In another report out today, the watchdog agency for the Troubled Asset Relief Program points out how much that hole has interfered with efforts to turn around the economy.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, created to keep an eye on TARP in October 2008 when Congress and the Bush administration put the program in place, said however much TARP helped bring the country back from the brink of depression, it has failed to make enough of a difference in the lives of many Americans.

The Obama administration last December decided to extend TARP through Oct. 3 of this year. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at the time said that in 2010 the program would be limited to preventing mortgage foreclosures, providing funds for small and community banks and making it easier for Americans to get student and car loans and use their credit cards. A fourth goal, he said, would be to preserve the Treasury's authority to intervene in financial markets in case there's another meltdown.

One has to wonder how many foreigners benefited from TARP?  How many grants to buy houses were given out by those benefiting from Obamacash?

Maybe there are two America's?  The wealthy political, banking, union, special interest, and Wall Street?  And the rest of us-the unemployed, foreclosure, and struggling? 

One class takes vacations, enjoys lobster, and seemingly endless  games of golf?  The other class keeps trudging along, hoping for any sign of life in the economy, and hoping the car makes it for another day?

"The program is now widely perceived as bailing out Wall Street banks and domestic auto manufacturers while doing little for the 14.9 million workers who are unemployed, the 11 million homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages or the countless other families struggling to make ends meet," said the panel, which is headed by Elizabeth Warren, who has been tapped by Obama to oversee establishment of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

"The poverty rate is likely to approach 16 percent before we are out of the woods and to remain high through the rest of this decade."

The Obama class parties on, the rest of us live in depression...for the rest of this decade.  How long can ten year really be?

more here - http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/how-a-poorer-america-is-holding-back-the-recovery/19636736