I've talked to probably a dozen people involved with the bill allowing bankruptcy judges to write-down mortgages, which would reduce foreclosures by 20% and wouldn't cost the taxpayers one dime. Every single person I spoke to said the same thing -- it's disgusting that banks are writing the legislation, watering it down so it is meaningless with the help of Ellen Tauscher and the New Democrat coalition.
On Saturday I wrote about the efforts of former Wall Street investment banker Tauscher to gut the legislation on behalf of banks, who are holding out hope that they can unload their bad loans on taxpayers and never have to take responsibility for their mistakes.
I promptly got a call from Jonathan Kaplan, Tauscher's press secretary, who said that the New Dem's Executive Director Adam Pase, a former lobbyist for predatory lenders who worked to undermine regulation of subprime loans, was not working on this issue. Nor, he claimed, was Tauscher taking the lead. He said Tauscher was only trying to help homeowners before they got to bankruptcy court, and wasn't trying to weaken anything.
Lo and behold, this morning we find not one but two articles where Tauscher brags about her leadership of an effort to "limit the scope of the bankruptcy bill as much as possible," saying that "it shows we have bench strength, and it shows we can flex." Adam Pace was circulating memos on the bill, and an article in Roll Call this morning (subscription) states that he is "widely credited with bringing a sharp organizational focus that has reinvigorated the group."
The upshot? Nancy Pelosi "buckled" and suspended consideration of the housing bill at a time when it is desperately needed.
(You can tell Speaker Pelosi to stand up to Tauscher, the New Dems, the banks and the lobbyists here.)
Business week also has an article detailing the way that banks are dictating how this legislation is being written. Lobbyist money is flowing into the coffers of Tauscher's New Dems, and nobody on the Hill even bothers to pretend that they are doing anything but representing corporate interests over those of the people who elected them.
New Democrats Bill Foster, Gabby Giffords, Shelly Berkley, Brian Baird, Melissa Bean, Patrick Murphy, John Larson, Dennis Moore and Jim Moran represent districts that will be the hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. Caroline Maloney and Ed Perlmutter are not on the list, but they are New Dems who have been vocal in their support for Tauscher's efforts.)
How do they explain to their constituents that thousands of homes will go into foreclosure in each of their respective districts without this legislation, dragging the value of other properties in the area with them in an endless downward spiral? Do they really think voters won't notice that they are aligned with the financial services industry against them?
You can write a letter to the editor of your local paper letting them know you'll be watching your representative's vote here.
Bank lobbyists worked through Tauscher and others to keep mortgage write-down from happening in 2007, when it could have been really helpful in softening the economic blow. How can Tauscher claim that there's anything "moderate" about working on behalf of the bankers who created this crisis? How do the New Dems justify tying the hands of bankruptcy judges when both Barack Obama and leading economists say it's vital to arresting the economic crisis?
When Democrats were given the keys to Congress and the White House, nobody did so with the idea that they should become the new recipients of K-Street lobbyist money, fattening their own coffers while the public suffers. The idea that they are being "fiscally responsible" is laughable.
Jane Hamsher blogs at firedoglake.com
Keep this up and you may end up being Rush Limbaugh's best friend.
This must be palatable to banks or they will never unclinch those fists. Don't punish the future for what the Bush bunch of crazies did. Cynicism is the absolute last thing we need right now.
The stimulus efforts of the government have been written by the banksters for the banksters. They want only to keep the scam going. Not one Congressperson is calling for fundamental changes to the banking and finance system that would address the actual causes of our problems. They just want to get the game started again and keep it going in order to drive the middle class and the government further into a crushing debt situation, leaving the banksters to pick up the pieces with our money.
Congress has sold the American people out, lock, stock, and barrel. They feel no guilt or shame for what they have done, presumably because they are proud of the job they have done for the people they really work for. And it ain't us.
Of course that's poppycock! There isn't a bank in the nation that made a residential Real Estate mortgage in the past eight to twelve years that was "blindsided" by a consumer who ended up with a primary home mortgage. Every single bank fully understood the risks with marginal credit ratings: when they wrote "bad mortgages", they knew the mortgage was bad!
We're all simply getting the shaft again from the banks. It is obscene to give them our money, again, to help them avoid going under. And they are busy trying to knife us in the back, again. They knew all the risks, most of the execs never bothered to understand the derivative concept or how swiftly it could turn around and bite them.
My vote remains to let - especially the top ten banks - go under: confiscate all income, bonuses, and perks from board members, executives, and start over with an "educated" financial system. It isn't going to hurt us more than it already has.
We can oppose Tauscher's position on banking issues, but I don't think we can say she's wrong for representing the interests of her constituents. Representatives from any region will go to bat for the major employers in their district, because that's where the voters work and get paid - or not!
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What we need is savvy reporters actually going after the story, editors who realize it is important. I noticed CNN's Howie started asking about media coverage again, is it misplaced?
I'd say so. They talk all week about Rush, after excessively covering him live, while there is no mention of the coal fired plant youth protest?
Wow.
Talk about a credibility gap.
Think like Jacob Marley, that "good man of business" according to his pal, Eb Scrooge. This truly is the archetype of the kind of non-people that we face here.
They stand to make billions of dollars ... a week. And, they are making billions of dollars ... a week ... right now. And the halls of Congress are full of people who ... yes, right now ... are having their pockets filled to overflowing, and who also know that the newspapers would be filled with their own impeachment if they did not carefully comply.
"High crime is real crime," ladies and gentlemen. And yes, some people will do anything at all for what they perceive to be gold.
And this is because AIG insures it? Wow who wrote that insurance policy?
Now we know why AIG is a big black hole for money. Please tell me again, why do we HAVE to bail them out? Because bankers said it was an emergency? Their argument is their over inflated bubble will collapse if we don't keep pumping exponentially larger sums of money into it. And to hurry, don't think about it.
Yeah right.
I think it is time for both the bankers and Tauscher's record on this to be throughly examined. I hope lots of people are learning accounting skills, it is a skill set that would be worth knowing. Looks like a growing job market, or it should be, I am afraid I am getting cynical about real investigations happening.
Is he interested? What are his politics? Why would he be a good political representative, or is the idea he is famous enough that he could beat Tauscher?
When Democrats were given the keys to Congress and the White House, nobody did so with the idea that they should become the new recipients of K-Street lobbyist money, fattening their own coffers while the public suffers. The idea that they are being "fiscally responsible" is laughable.
/quote
On local radio recently I heard a brilliant insight about what's passing for "fiscal responsibility" in certain circles, these days. I'll paraphrase it as well as I can:
A tax cut reduces the government's revenues, meaning it costs the people money. Instead of discussing every tax cut as money that "we save" we should talk about tax cuts like any other type of government PROGRAM, as in SPENDING PROGRAM, and in particular we should not hesitate to criticize squandering government funds on tax "relief" for members of society who already consume more than they contribute: millionaire and billionaire recipients of TARP funds and of previous corporate subsidies. $100 Billion in tax cuts are as costly to the people as $100 Billion on any SPENDING PROGRAM. And in times of deep recession, tax cuts do not provide stimulus to an ailing or failing economy nearly as efficiently as direct government spending does. Tax cuts, like the corporatists they enrich, do not pull their own weight.
http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/default.asp?src=economy_homepage
What Tauscher is up to differs only superficially; it is just another pyramid scheme rooted in simple wordplay, prescribing ordinary measures for these extraordinary times.