Letter: Shame belongs to politicians

On Jan. 29, President Obama called the bonuses paid to Wall Street employees “shameful.” Radio host Tom Sullivan reported that up to 90 percent of wages earned by Wall Street employees are in the form of bonuses. The term “shameful” should be applied to many others before it is used to label Wall Street employees.

The current financial debacle is a result of the housing mortgage collapse. The mortgage collapse is the result of “shameful” government policies which promoted loans to unqualified buyers.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac backed those loans expecting the federal government to shield them from certain failures. These failures reverberated throughout the financial markets, including markets of other countries.

Government policies in California are another “shameful” example. Spend, spend, and spend by an overwhelmingly liberal Legislature and a governor pretending to be a conservative has devastated our state economy.

Action by voters who approve every feel-good proposition on the ballot without any regard to adding long-term debt to the budget that has to be paid from tax revenue is “shameful.”

Most “shameful” of all is the “shamelessness” of politicians who keep feeding taxpayers their garbage while maintaining a sincere demeanor.

Houston W. Taylor Sr.

Yuba City