Printer-friendly version
by Jeeni Criscenzo
October 1, 2008 (San Diego) - Once again, our president is
badgering Congress to hurry up and approve his plan or something terrible will
happen-this time, he's not threatening us with a mushroom cloud, this time
it's a more ambiguous "distressing
scenario." His solution was an unfettered, unaccountable bailout of Wall
Street with $700 Billion dollars of taxpayer money.
During a televised address
last Wednesday, Bush said that he understands "the
frustration of responsible Americans; but given the situation we're facing,
not passing the bill now will cost Americans much more later."
If Congress had passed this bill as it was, it would have triggered
a far more distressing scenario than the economic downturn that Bush and Cheney
are holding over our heads. With less than four months left to his reign, the
Bush administration is desperate to complete their agenda, which by many accounts
is the transformation of our republic into a huge global corporation (i.e.
fascism).
Shame on you!
This situation is all to familiar-use a crisis
to pressure Congress to agree to terms that under normal circumstances would
seem preposterous. Mr. President, I believe you tried to use this expression
in the past: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me! And shame
on anyone who lets this ruse happen again!
How come no one is talking about
the fact that twenty years ago, our current Republican presidential candidate,
John McCain, was up to his neck in an eerily similar banking crisis-the Savings
and Loan Scandal. Years of de-regulation, championed by McCain, led to the
failure of hundreds of banks and a taxpayer bailout of $125 billion. Remember
the Keating 5? McCain was one of five senators who accepted bribes from Charles
Keating, chairman of the failing Lincoln Savings & Loan Association, in
exchange for getting regulators who were investigating his operations to look
the other way. Now McCain tells voters he wants to get tough on Wall Street
and "end the
old boys network." (1) Shame on the media and the Obama campaign for not
reminding voters of this.
Another outrageous power grab
There is an amusing email making
the rounds, mimicking the ubiquitous Nigerian scam, where the "Minister
of Treasury, Paulson" instructs
the American people to "Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA
and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren
to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov." If
approved in its original form, the bailout would amount to that, but worse;
it would result in a consolidation of power to the Executive Branch. The original
4-page bailout plan blatantly stated:
Decisions
by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable
and committed to agency discretion,
and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
What! Non-reviewable! How
is this different than the words of a thief holding a gun to your head: "Hand
over your money or something 'distressing' is going to happen." As
originally proposed, we would have had no more control over what happened to
that $700 billion handed to Paulson than we would have handing it to a robber.
The last time this administration held the gun to our heads, they pushed
through the disastrous Iraq War, and before that, the Patriot Act-340 pages
that were somehow written overnight, that traded away our Bill of Rights in
order "to save us from the terrorists." This time, we would be signing
away our purse strings. Remember the Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes
the rules.
Without sufficient oversight, this bailout could be the last
straw in the scarecrow this administration has built to terrify working class
Americans into servitude while enriching the privileged class. George W. Bush
will have succeeded in ushering in fascism before he leaves office - if indeed
he ever does.
Or a shift in the fascist shift
On the other hand, it's possible that with this plan the Administration has
played out their hand and they won't be walking away from the table with the
pot after all. Their plans to attack Iran before the election seem to have
been thwarted - perhaps by higher-ups in the military who refused to be bullied
into initiating another insane war. So another crisis had to be conjured up
quickly-Voila! The Wall Street Crisis!
If you doubt this crisis and its extreme solution wasn't cunningly crafted
beforehand, note this "slip" by White House Deputy Press Secretary
Tony Fratto. He insisted, during a telephone briefing with reporters last Tuesday
that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over
previous months and weeks by administration officials. (2) So
this crisis didn't come as a surprise after all - even while George W. Bush
was telling us that the economy is basically sound, people who know a lot more
about economics were predicting the inevitable result of deregulation and unchecked
greed. And now they want those of us who have to balance our checkbooks each
month or live in the street, to foot the bill.
Finally, outrage has crossed
party lines. Send our kids to war for lies and only a small percentage of American
citizens object. Take away our civil liberties and there's barely a blip of
protest. Even images of American soldiers torturing prisoners failed to ruffle
the ire of the masses. But ordinary people
have finally been pushed too far-they are losing their homes, losing their
jobs and losing their illusion that life will continue to be okay for them
no matter what the politicians do. With an election coming up in five weeks
there could be a major political shake-up if Congress hands over this money
without sufficient accountability.
This blatant corporate welfare flies in
the face of the very bedrock of Republican rhetoric about personal responsibility,
not expecting the government to take care of you, and letting the market adjust
itself. As AFL-CIO's John Sweeney said, "One thing is certain. No one-no
politician, no investment banker, no television commentator, no economist-should
be able to say again with a straight face that here in the United States we
just let markets do whatever markets do and everything works out for the best."
Even
my opponent in the 2006 Congressional race, Rep. Darrell Issa, said that the "prospect
of transferring trillions of dollars of risk and losses to taxpayers is appalling." Issa
doesn't give a damn about the human beings living in his district, but he knows
that he's not going to get his conservative base to re-elect him if he just
throws their core values to the wind.(3)
Meanwhile Democrats in Congress seem
to be looking for ways to manipulate this exorbitant hand-out so some of it
falls to their hurting constituents. But they seem to be missing the point-we
don't have $700 billion dollars! We are already passing a debt on to our great-grandchildren
that boggles the mind. Democrats have to get real about this issue and stop
acting like kids let loose in a candy store-you have to pay for that candy!
You want money for universal healthcare? Stop spending billions every day on
the war in Iraq. See this bailout for what it is-a ploy to take every last
dime away from working people, for generations to come. Instead of looking
for what Congress can get in exchange for doing this deal, maybe we should
just say, "No deal!"
I don't claim to have any expertise in economics.
But I'm a quick study and I'm a wiz at math. Congress needs to take a deep
breath and demand a careful analysis of what would happen if we do this, or
something else, or nothing at all. I'm certain there are brilliant economists
who could prepare a nice simple chart that all of us could understand, based
on real logic, that calculates best and worse case scenarios for multiple plans,
including the "do nothing" option.
The President demanded that Congress
give him the go ahead on this crazy deal a week ago. The sky hasn't fallen
this past week while saner heads in Congress deliberated. And I would guess
that the economy won't crash and burn if we wait a month to make this decision.
Our legislators are anxious to get back home to campaign for the November election.
They know that every day they spend in Washington is a precious day lost in
campaigning. The con-artists who conjured up this scheme know it too, and past
experience has proven that their best bet to getting this bailout passed is
to pressure legislators to make another hasty decision.
My advice to Congress: Let's learn from those past mistakes-you can't make
wise decisions with a gun to your head. Let's get the facts, weigh our options
and make a wise choice for a change. Do that, and you won't have to worry about
campaigning, your constituents will sweep you back into office, showering you
with gratitude and respect.
References:
(1) Video: John McCain and the Keating 5: Third
Term http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxBCAaulG-k
(2) Roll Call: September 23, 2008, 10:42 a.m. by Keith Koffler http://www.rollcall.com/news/28599-1.html?type=printer_friendly
(3) Issa opposes bailout plan, North County
Times, September 23, 2008
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/09/23/news/sandiego/z4be6cdd189c6cea5882574cd006bafdc.txt
Jeeni Criscenzo is a former Democratic Congressional candidate
who ran against Congressman Darrell Issa in thee 49th district,, which includes
the Northeast portion of San Diego County. If you are interested in receiving future e-mails from Jeeni Criscenzo, please sign up at www.communitysurvivalstrategies.com.
The views expressed in this editorial are the opinions of the
author and do not necessarily reflect the views of East County Magazine
or its publisher. If
you wish to submit an editorial for consideration, contact editor@eastcountymagazine.org.
Recent comments