The Bush Administration has floated a plan to bailout Wall Street to the tune of at least $700 billion. Our representative, Mr Frank, will have a lot to do with what eventually is done since he heads the House Banking Committee. One provision that the Bush people want is this, as Glen Greenwald details on his blog.
"Decisions by the (Treasury) 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" [Sec. 8]The Congress should attach as many strings ...
Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes.
...as they can think of to this bailout. Please contact Mr Frank and ask him to make sure the people's interests are represented. You can email him at this link.
One condition that I would require is that the President's appointees must show up and testify at Congressional oversight hearings. Many current and former administration officials are now under subpoeona and refuse to come before the people's representatives in the Congress. Before turning over $700 billion to an administration which has proven itself unable to do anything right, the least that should be insisted upon is rigorous oversight by the Congress. We can start with the issues being stonewalled right now.
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7 comments:
republican business folks really screwed things up, so many rich business people are republicans. Vote democrat to fix this costly mess.
DITTO, agree.
Refusing to testify on the Hill is actually not a partisan issue, or at least it shouldn't be. Our constitutional system of checks and balances requires the executive to submit to inquiries from the legislature. Many in the Bush Administration have refused to appear before Congress. I see it as a separation of powers issue. Our representatives have been remiss in allowing it to occur and should use this opportunity to compel compliance as I said in my post.
The plan being proposed is for the taxpayers to assume all the bad debt from financial institutions. Having shed those, the stocks of these companies will rise in value but there is nothing in the proposal for those companies to then compensate us, the taxpayers. They get to pocket the profit and we are left holding all the bad paper which they wrote, bought, and insured.
I find it funny how this is all being blamed on the Bush Administation. Have you seen the list of political contributions made by FAnnie mae and Freddie MAc? An awful lot of Democrats at the top of the list. SO don't don't give me the holier than though platform. They are all crooks. Don't forget, we impeached the last President and he refused to leave. So I don't know why you are surprised people are refusing to testify.
Why wouldn't this be blamed on the Bush Administration? Who is Phil Gramm and what is his role in this? Do you even know what you are talking about?
Impeachment is not conviction, it is similar to being indicted. Clinton had articles of impeachment forwarded to the Senate from the House, the Senate did not convict him. How many billions did Clinton's indiscretion cost?
Where was COngressman Frank during all this? He's very vocal now that the perverbial S&%^ has hit the fan but for the last several years? There's plenty of blame to go around in this mess.
Where was COngressman Frank during all this? He's very vocal now that the perverbial S&%^ has hit the fan but for the last several years? There's plenty of blame to go around in this mess, including those that purchased homes they knew darn well they could not afford. Democrat, Republican they all wanted to push housing down everyone's throat. The American Dream for everyone - even those without 2 nickels to rub together. And now we get to pay the piper.
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