DeFazio explodes; calls bailout plan "a bunch of b.s."
Kari Chisholm
If you do nothing else today, watch this five-minute speech by Peter DeFazio. He's figured out the Bush Administration's Wall Street bailout plan - and he's not happy. Not even a little.
House Democrat Peter DeFazio of Oregon had harsh words for the rescue plan from the House floor, raising the specter of the 2002 election-eve vote on use of military force, which gave congressional approval for the war in Iraq. Talking about the unprecedented bailout, he called it "sort of an immediate authorization for use of financial force."DeFazio took a shot at Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. "He is of, by, for, and about Wall Street," the lawmaker said. DeFazio said in a single year, Wall Street bonuses exceeded $60 billion and added: "These people are out of control. They don't understand the real world. For them to talk about Main Street, and that they care about Main Street and student loans and homeowners' equity, is a bunch of B.S."
"We are the last bulwark here, the House of Representatives and the Senate," he concluded. "If this bill were to pass as proposed, we'll do an incredible disservice to the American people."
And there's even more from MSNBC, Politico, Huffington Post, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and the AP.
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Sep 22, '08
DeFazio is the Man.
But where are Earl, Wu and Hooley on this?
Sep 22, '08
Kari - I'll believe DeFazio's outrage is sincere when he calls for the removal of the people in the Democrat party who are responsible for this mess. Frank, Dodd, etc.
While both parties are responsible to some degree that Dems (Frank/Dodd, even Obama) were driving the GSE bus when it went off course.
Until he calls for their removal, this is no more so than a political stunt. Ditto for the Republicans who are "outraged."
Sep 22, '08
Darlene Hooley is in the back pocket of the banks. When I contacted her about changes in the bankruptcy laws, her response was people should live within their means.
My money is on her agreeing with the buyout and giving a going away present to the banks.
Sep 23, '08
Cynical me. If Defazio gets relief for main street, I don't care what kind of relief he gets for himself. I would rather he get something done and get some for himself then the present thieves who simply have taken for themselves and want to leave us $700,000,000,000 in the hole.
Sep 23, '08
Does this mean DeFazio has disdain for Robert Rubin and Governor Corzine? Weren't they both at one time Chair and CEO of Goldman-Sachs? Wasn't it under Rubin's tenor as Treasury Secretary that Fannie and Freddie were basically deregulated more as to allow more loans to "unqualified" customers to open more minority markets?
DeFazio is right to blast the folks now but he has never shied away from blasting his fellow D's in the past either. Come on Peter, give em all hell!!!!
7:59 a.m.
Sep 23, '08
I love it that the Republicans are landing on their feet as always.
The deregulating terminators that hate government, know it doesn't work, and when they get control of it, they prove it doesn't work, by letting the top end of the financial industry run completely amok.
But never fear, the deriviatves markets, the leveraging of debt through manufactured financial intsruments that the Serious Guys say even they don't understand;
Can all be solved by yelling rilly rilly loud and repeating often:
Fannie Mae!!!! Freddy Mac!!!The Democrats were in on it too!!!!!!
<hr/>As for our own Peter DeFazio, he got a nice long clip on CNN last night, addressing the very heart of the bailout mess: The dictatorial powers to be granted to the treasury secretary.
Thank you Rep. DeFazio.
12:24 p.m.
Sep 23, '08
DeFazio was the one member of the Oregon delegation who voted against the repeal of Glass-Steagall banking rules in 1999.
Sep 23, '08
No welfare for Wall St.!- Obama
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/in_remarks_on_bailout_obama_sh.php#comments
1:52 p.m.
Sep 23, '08
"when he calls for the removal of the people in the Democrat party who are responsible for this mess. "
When was Phil Gramm ever a Democrat?
Sep 23, '08
DeFazio puts all his pay raises into a scholarship fund. When he's in D.C., he lives on a rented boat. The man walks the talk.
When he says the bailout is bogus, you can believe him.
Sep 23, '08
Go Peter!!!
Sep 23, '08
Great job Mr. D, now watcha gonna do.................
Sep 23, '08
Does anyone realie how huge $700,000,000,000 is? Compare it with an annual US federal budget. Outrage is reasonable. Thank you DeF. In a way I can't believe there's even a conversation about this.
Sep 23, '08
Thanks, TJ. In a year when even the GOP Platform Comm. agreed to refer to the DemocratIC, Party in their print platform, it is a dead giveaway when the folks who want Gramm et al to be held blameless slip into the old habit which, in fairness, should get the response that they belong to the Republic Party.
Johnnie, if you want to be taken seriously, don't write things like this in the future:
"Kari - I'll believe DeFazio's outrage is sincere when he calls for the removal of the people in the Democrat party who are responsible for this mess. Frank, Dodd, etc."
It wasn't the fault of those who didn't control Congress from 1995-2007 that the Bush Administration Justice Dept. didn't enforce the laws currently on the books.
Chris Dodd and Barney Frank--did they vote to deregulate banks, investment houses, and insurance companies? Or is this "blame the Democrats, because the Republicans are infallible"?
Interesting how many Republicans don't march in lock step with the 3 page document the Bush Administration wanted passed without any detailed examination.
Sep 24, '08
LT -
check out opensecrets.com to see who was in the back pockets of fannie and freddie and check out the execs who got golden parachutes who now are on Team Obama and are being considered to be part of an Obama administration. Deep ties between Fannie/Freddie and Team Obama.
Both parties are culpable. But blaming this on deregulation is like blaming the free market for double digit mortgage and umemployment rates under Carter.
Mortgage lending took that "reckless and unsustainable turn" because of regulation - regulation driven by liberals and progressives, not free-market "deregulators."
Pushed hard by politicians and community activists, the regulators systematically and deliberately altered financially sound lending practices.
The shift began in 1989, when Congress amended the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants. By 1991, critics were using that data to paint lenders as racist by showing that minority applicants were approved at far lower rates. Banks were "Shamed By Publicity," as one 1993 New York Times headline put it.
In fact, they found a racial disparity only by ignoring relevant data on applicants' ability to make mortgage payments - such as their assets and credit history.
But the political pressure was intense - with few in politics or media eager to speak the truth. And then, in 1992, came a study from four researchers at the Boston Fed, which seemed to bear out the critics' contentions.
That study was, in fact, based on quite flawed data - but the authors' political, media and academic protectors stifled most serious criticism, smearing the reputation of one whistleblower and allowing the Boston authors to avoid answering serious academic challenges (mine included) to their work. Other studies with different conclusions were ignored.
The very next year, the Boston Fed announced new requirements for banks - rules that have now turned out to be monumentally catastrophic: Adopt "relaxed lending standards" or risk being labeled as racists, and face serious penalties under the federal Community Reinvestment Act.
Gone (as "arbitrary" and "outdated") were traditional lending requirements such as requiring a down payment or limiting mortgage payments to 28 percent of income. (Of course, the loosened lending standards weren't limited to poor and minority applicants - that would be discriminatory.)
If regulation was the key, then heavily regulated industries would be as clean as the wind driven snow - like the oil and gas industry.
Sep 24, '08
go... go, Johnny go
yeah... I'm singin'
it's like watching someone let a wild bear lick honey off their fingers... you really don't want to see them get their arm ripped off, and you're horrified when it actually happens; but, hell, the signs were there for everyone, right?!
"Don't feed the bears!" Especially if you're one of them there mean ol' bear hatin' elitists what's always trying to keep somebody down! Get over there and stick your arm out or I'm tellin' everybody how you're a hater!!
You're right, Johnny. Now the arm comes off. A big ol' bloody mess... disgusting.
9:32 p.m.
Sep 24, '08
Phil Gramm was a Democrat as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He switched to R after Reagan won in 1980.
Peter Defazio calls for taxpayers to have an equity stake in the bailed out corporations. Why should taxpayers be forced to invest in corporations having the reckless managements that created the financial manipulation in the first place? Why should taxpayer money be used to allow the manipulators to continue and even expand their manipulation?
No bailout.
Cheerleader Bush appears on TV in a new role, as Doomsayer Bush, in order to incite the financial panic he claims to be fighting. The Bushites know that next year they will be out of power, probably permanently, so they need a big heist now: Make the taxpayers buy financial "instruments" at prices wildly above what they are worth, so that the same firms that created the mess will survive and continue to engage in financial manipulation and line the pocket of their mega-millionaire executives. How about instead letting those firms go bankrupt and allowing the over 8,000 existing regional and local banks take over the business of loaning money?
Sep 25, '08
It is time to clear out both parties and get rid of the Fed with its minimal fractional reserve method of banking. Minimal fractional reserve banking requires too much oversight and it still causes problems no matter how well you regulate it.
Sep 25, '08
Submerging into this bail-out debate is like sinking into a quicksand of nightmares - blurred images of progressives singing kumbaya for regulations, while fringed pundits from the right extricate themselves from the pounding surf of free-market excesses. Seemed the Adams Smith's world is rocked.
Folks, what do I know? Not a lot.
Pking