George Sr., George Jr., Neil and Jeb Bush!

This is why the Republicans are so determined to undermine the Financial Reform Bill.

Saint Reagan salad days that mushroomed the national debt from 930 Billion Dollars to 2.2 Trillion Dollars also deregulated the Savings & Loan Association in the 80’s and created one of the largest financial fraud on the American Tax Payers.

It is no wonder that the Republicans are so hell bent on reversing any accountability to Banks and Big Business that is a vital part of the Financial Reform Bill.

In the early 1980s, President Reagan's regulatory changes took place that gave the Savings & Loan industry new powers and for the first time in history measures were taken to increase the profitability of the Savings & Loan at the expense of promoting home ownership.

The Savings & Loan scandal was the largest theft in the history of the world and US tax payers are who was robbed. The problems occurred in the Savings and Loan industry as they relate to theft because the industry was deregulated under the Reagan/Bush administration and restrictions were eased on the industry so much, that abuse and misuse of funds became easy, rampant, and went unchecked.

Additional facts on the Savings and Loan Scandal!

The many ways in which the Bush family played into the Savings and Loan scandal involved not only many members of the Bush family but also many other politicians that are still in office and some of them were part of the Bush Jr. administration. Jeb Bush, George Bush Sr., and his son Neil Bush have all been implicated in the Savings and Loan Scandal, which cost American tax payers over $1.4 TRILLION dollars (note that this was about one quarter of our national debt at the time)

When Vice President George Bush finally announced that there was a Savings and Loan Crisis to the world, the Reagan/Bush administration worked to cover up the Savings and Loan problems by reducing the number and depth of examinations required of the Savings & Loan Association as well as attacking political opponents who were sounding early alarms about the Savings & Loan industry.

Industry insiders were aware of significant Savings & Loan problems as early 1986 that they felt would require a bailout. This information was kept from the media until after George W.H. Bush had won the 1988 elections.

Jeb Bush defaulted on a $4.56 million loan from Broward Federal Savings in Sunrise, Florida. After federal regulators closed the Savings & Loan, the office building that Jeb used the $4.56 million to finance was reappraised by the regulators at $500,000, which Bush and his partners paid. The taxpayers had to pay back the remaining 4 million plus dollars.

Neil Bush was the most widely targeted member of the Bush family by the press in the scandal. Neil became director of Silverado Savings and Loan at the age of 30 in 1985. Three years later the institution was belly up at a cost of $1.6 billion for tax payers to bail out.

The basic actions of Neil Bush in the S&L scandal are as follows:

Neil received a $100,000 "loan" from Ken Good, of Good International, with no obligation to pay any of the money back. Good was a large shareholder in JNB Explorations, Neil Bush's oil-exploration company. Neil failed to disclose this conflict-of-interest when loans were given to Good from Silverado, because the money was to be used in joint venture with his own JNB. This was in essence giving himself a loan from Silverado through a third party.

Neil then helped Silverado S&L approve Good International for a $900,000 line of credit. Good defaulted on a total $32 million in loans from Silverado. During this time Neil Bush did not disclose that $3 million of the $32 million that Good International was defaulting on, was actually for investment in JNB, his own company.

Good International subsequently raised Neil Bush's JNB salary from $75,000 to $125,000 and granted him a $22,500 bonus. Neil Bush maintained that he did not see how this constituted a conflict of interest. Neil approved $106 million in Silverado loans to another JNB investor, Bill Walters. Neil also never formally disclosed his relationship with Walters and Walters also defaulted on his loans, all $106 million.

Neil Bush was charged with criminal wrongdoing in the case and ended up paying $50,000 to settle out of court. The chief of Silverado S&L was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for pleading guilty to $8.7 million in theft. (Keep in mind that you can get more jail time for holding up a gas station for $50.)

It should also be noted that shortly after the news broke of Neil Bush’s involvement in the Savings & Loan scandal hit the press his father, George Bush Sr., announced the Desert Storm campaign in Iraq, which subsequently had the result of making Neil’s name quickly fade from the headlines. In addition, during Neil Bush's divorce proceeding in 2003 were exposing more backroom Bush dealings, America was once again bombarded with war propaganda for Operation Iraq Freedom.

With all of this, one would think that the American people would have awaken from their bad dream by now, but considering what just transpired in the Mid-Term Election, I am afraid, lots of Americans are still sound asleep!

Sheriff G Ali