Guest Contributor

The latest efforts at reforming our financial system have been dismal at best. Going forward, in order to ensure safety in our financial markets, lawmakers must put their differences aside and address the problem of too big to fail banks. The inconsistency of these institutions in the wake of the Great Recession has its roots in excessive leverage, outrageous fees, and above all, a general neglect of risk management.

Now lawmakers want to hold big banks accountable – but they don’t know how. The banks have grown to become over-leveraged, highly inter-connected monsters enjoying the comfort of Uncle Sam’s implied guarantee. And why shouldn’t they? Their cost of capital has been significantly reduced, their overbearing advantage over small banks is more evident than ever, and above all their bonus structure remains intact. Recognizing that too big to fail is actually too big to exist will level the playing field and alleviate the pressure on the taxpayer for funding the next blunder on Wall Street.

As a former Georgia State Senator¹ and leader among community banks, I felt obligated to guide the organization, ‘Stop Too Big to Fail.’² I want to speak up in order to protect the interests of the retiree, the entrepreneur saving to start his own business, or the family looking for safety in their child’s college fund. Congress has entertained the idea of creating a slush fund for the next bailout, formed by taxing institutions whose assets surpass a $10 Billion threshold. A strategy of this nature encourages moral hazard at the expense of taxpayers, as banks will offset the tax by passing fees on to depositors and in turn taking greater risk because of their government sponsorship.

In the last few weeks, the media has given me the opportunity to explain why perpetuating a policy of too big to fail is likely to create another taxpayer-funded bailout. I encourage you to watch for new information that gets posted on our website daily in order to learn more about getting involved. Let’s evade the arduous policy being discussed on Capitol Hill and start by breaking up the banks.

For more information, please visit StopTooBigToFail² directly or follow their updates on Twitter and Facebook.

Source(s): ¹Web page of Georgia State Senator Sam Zamarripa • ²Stop Too Big To Fail Website

Sam Zamarripa, Founder and President – Zamarripa Capital Incorporated

Founder and President of Zamarripa Capital Incorporated a private equity corporation focused on lower middle market companies in the Southeastern United States. From 2002 – 2006, Sam was a Partner and Managing Director at Heritage Capital Advisors focusing on investments in media and financial services. In 2007, Mr. Zamarripa was appointed as a Senior Advisor to Darby Private Equity, the private equity arm of Franklin Templeton Investments. He began his career in financial services in 1990 with Diaz-Verson Capital Incorporated, a registered investment advisory firm with over $400 million in assets under management. Mr. Zamarripa was a co-founder of United Americas Bank, NA of Atlanta. He has served as Director of the Holding Company for United Americas Bank since 1998. He is a director of Assurance America Corporation (ASAM.OB) and Chairman of the Compensation Committee. In 2010 Mr. Zamarripa was elected to the Board of Managers for IP2Biz, LLC of Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Zamarripa served two terms in the State Senate of Georgia representing the City of Atlanta where he served as the Secretary of the State Economic Development Committee and member of the committees on Insurance, Science & Technology and Transportation. He retired from the State Senate, undefeated in 2006. Mr. Zamarripa is a Trustee of Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. He holds a BA from New College of Sarasota, Florida and a Masters of Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University, Syracuse New York.

The Smoking Argus

OFFICIAL STATEMENT – Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) delivers the weekly Republican address on the Health Care Reform bill that is currently being debated in the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Isakson also sends his condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives due to the recent flooding in Georgia.

Senator Isakson discusses how important this Health Care Reform bill is to the American people and how the Republicans have listened to what their constituents have demanded at local events and town hall forums.

Senator Isakson declares that “Americans are rightly concerned about the rush to pass a massive overhaul that will raise their taxes, lower their quality of care and put government between them and their doctor.” And that “Republicans believe the key to reforming health care is strengthening the doctor-patient relationship by using choice and competition rather than rationing and restrictions to contain costs and ensure access to affordable health care.”

—END OFFICIAL STATEMENT—

Related Material(s)
	TRANSCRIPT: Republican National Committee, Weekly Republican Remarks by Rep. Johnny Isakson of Georgia (PDF 12.1Kb)

Source(s): House Republican Conference • The Weekly Republican Address YouTube Channel

The Smoking Argus

WASHINGTON D.C. – Representative Tom Price of the sixth Congressional District of Georgia and a physician who practiced medicine in Atlanta, delivers the Weekly Republican Address on health care. Representative Price believes that third-party decision making and rising costs are driving patients away from doctors and the desired care they seek. However, he feels the challenge lies in supplying more accessible health care which is both affordable and patient centered without impairing the quality of care, innovation, and choices which are the cornerstones of American medicine. According to Representative Price, this is an impossible task under the Democrat and President Obama’s “one size fits all” approach to health care.

Additionally as a physician who navigated Federal health care programs, Representative Price experienced first hand how impossible it is for Washington bureaucrats to handle the personal and unique circumstances encountered by doctors and patients each and every day.

Source(s): Official Republican House Conference YouTube Channel • GOP Website

Allison Bricker

ARLINGTON, TEXAS – Twenty-year old U.S. Airman, Colton Read checked into David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento, California for what was supposed to be the routine removal of his gallbladder. However, shortly after he was taken in for surgery, the government surgeon mistakenly cut through his aortic valve, sending nurses scrambling to procure emergency pints of blood. Even more disconcerting, the negligent doctor then waited an additional seven and a half hours to facilitate a move of Airman Read to UC Davis, the closest state run hospital with a vascular surgeon on staff.

As a consequence of the delay coupled with the large loss of blood, surgeons were then forced to amputate both of Airman Read’s legs. Moreover, with Airman Read still under intensive care, doctors are now unable to perform the original gallbladder surgery for fear of infection.

Nevertheless, the insult and pain suffered by the Read’s at the hands of the government doctors does not end with the mutilation of yet another veteran. Despite the government surgeon acknowledging the error was his, the Read’s will be unable to recover any damages whatsoever from the Federal government.

Airman Read and all active military are prohibited from seeking any type of remedy through the courts due to what is known as the “Feres Doctrine”. The doctrine is a result of the 1950 Supreme Court ruling in the matter of Feres v. United States¹, 340 U.S. 135. The ruling found that the U.S. Government could not be held liable by members of the armed forces for damages or wrongful death/injury at the hands of another agent of government during the regular course of their duty. The Supreme Court based their ruling on the common law concept of “sovereign immunity”, whereby a state cannot commit a legal wrong and is thus immune from prosecution.

Moreover, the egregious butchering of Airman Read is not an isolated incident within the halls occupied by government doctors of the Veterans Administration. Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez² had both his Illinois and Massachusetts medical licenses suspended only after he was found to be directly involved with the deaths of at least nine patients under his care. Consequently, the Marion, Illinois VA Medical Center was forced to halt all surgeries upon the discovery of the gross negligence.

In addition, government run VA hospitals in Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida have come under harsh criticism for using tainted colonoscopy³ equipment during the procedure thereby exposing veterans to hepatitis and AIDS. Further, a VA prostate cancer center located in Philadelphia misplaced the bulk of the chemotherapy “seeds” into a patient’s healthy bladder instead of the intended target of the patient’s prostate⁴. However even more alarming, federal investigators then sought to cover up government Doctor Gary D. Kao’s mistakes by fraudulently altering patient records.

As the President continues his push for a “government option” hoisted upon the rest of the population, the abhorrent past and continuing track record of the Veterans Administration coupled with the tort immunity currently buried in H.R. 3200 for insurance companies are legitimate issues of concern. The aforementioned, seriously call into question just exactly how the government will provide a “quality” option for all Americans when it has demonstrated repeatedly its glaring incompetence and negligence for the 3% of the population served by the Veterans Administration.

Source(s): ¹Feres v. United States¹, 340 U.S. 135 (1950) • ²NPR Report: “Poor Care at VA Hospital Caused 9 Deaths” • ³CBS News “VA: 16 Patients From Clinics Infected” • ⁴New York Times “At V.A. Hospital, a Rogue Cancer Unit” •

Tarrin Lupo

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA – Local pull-peddling bureaucrats are attempting to impose strict new  licensing requirements for bartenders and servers. Using yet another creative tax and fee scheme designed to squeeze every last cent out of small business owners as tax revenues dwindle, the city is seeking to implement a  “pour license” replicating a scheme successfully deployed throughout the rest of the state and the nation.

Under the guise of promoting public safety, the smarmy self-appointed liquor-czar is also looking to levy a new $35 background check fee for all current and future employees at the business owners expense, in order to investigate whether the potential employee is prone to or has had episodes of violent disorderly pouring of spirits in their past.

Source(s): LCL Report

Tarrin Lupo

JEKYLL ISLAND, GEORGIA – This week we travel back to Jekyll Island, Georgia this time to look in on a group committed to rescuing and healing injured sea turtles. We also examine how a private charity such as this may be able to fully free themselves from the bureaucratic red tape an organization becomes entangled in, upon their acceptance of a government grant.

Source(s): LCL Report • The Georgia Sea Turtle Center

Tarrin Lupo

JESUP, GEORGIA -  Coming upon a traffic accident involving a woman and law-enforcement officer, the officer seems to pay more attention to my filming of him and his fellow officers than the accident itself.

Tarrin Lupo

While the Founding Generation had the “intolerable Acts” the current state of government interference can at lest be summed up as utterly absurd. We explore the litany of endless nonsense laws passed by our beloved representatives. On deck in today’s video we explore the more moronic laws of Georgia, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Missouri. Who knew handcuffing another clown could be considered an act of civil disobedience?

Tarrin Lupo

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA – Residents and business owners are banding together in order to protest the city’s new revenue generating cash cow; $208 Dollar Jaywalking fines in downtown. Consequently, the new ‘jaywalking trap’ in the business district comes at the expense of policing one of the most deadly intersections in the city, just five miles out from Savannah’s new golden goose.

Further illustrating the arrogance of government officials, I manage to record a parking enforcement officer failing to stop at the very intersection in question. His dedication for safety is obviously secondary to his desire to please his city bosses by the issuance of as many parking citations for recently expired parking meters as possible.

Finally, we get the chance to speak with both the owner of ‘24e’ a furniture boutique in downtown Savannah, Mr. Ruel Joyner, and Mr. Michael Gastner head of the recently formed citizens protest group, ‘Savannians Against Ticketing for Jaywalking.’

Source(s): Savannahians Against Ticketing for Jaywalking – Facebook Group