Today, the debate presaged in "Democrats Losing PR Wars on Banks, Too" that pointed out the far graver risk big banks posed to the rest of us as participants in the economy than as taxpayers (i.e., trillions vs billions) exploded into the mainstream media.
Feckless Democratic strategists were allowing Republicans to appear at once as the champion of taxpayers, purporting to oppose financial reform because it contained what appeared to be a bailout fund, and simultaneously in their traditional role as the handmaidens of Wall Street by opposing any major change to the financial system that would have brought the country to economic ruin had it not been saved by the government.
Get this: Republicans met Wall Street bankers, supposedly telling those crony capitalists that they would oppose financial reform on the fraudulent claim it contained a bailout fund, and Wall Street -- ready for this one -- lavished them with campaign contributions because they really did not want to be bailed out the next time they failed! What honor! What self-sacrifice! What patriotism! What crap!
Before, only Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck had openly stated that they wanted the economy to tank further, sacrificing the American people for the sake of damaging President Obama.
Today, Republican Congressional leadership (McConnell and Boehner) confirmed that they oppose financial reform and they oppose breaking up the big banks. They claim they would just let big banks fail.
That, my friends, is a Republican Declaration of War against the American people, against you and me.
Need proof?
Nineteen months ago, the Lehman Brothers collapse demonstrated with devastating clarity the impact of a big bank failure not just on its own shareholders, employees and creditors, but also on the American economy.
Trillions of dollars were lost. Not just by the banks. By you and me. People who had their entire net worth in their homes -- wiped out. People with retirement accounts to supplement social security -- wiped out. People who had saved to send their children to college -- wiped out.
Nor was this just an economic calamity. Younger peoples' careers -- on indefinite hold as jobs were wiped out and needed experience could not be obtained. Older workers' jobs -- wiped out in a flash flood, with pride of work and paychecks going down the drain, never to return.
Government deficits ballooned (and, without the bailout, would have been worse with a much lower tax revenue base). The country's strength to do what needs to be done to make the world safer and better was sapped.
Republican Congressional leadership declared today, with definitive clarity, that this is the future they will allow by opposing the big bank breakup, and facilitate by opposing meaningful reforms.
And, the feckless Democratic strategists and politicians, what are they doing? They are at it again, arguing over whether their financial reform bill has a bailout fund in it or not.
What is the best result that argument can achieve? That the public becomes convinced there is no bailout fund. BFD.
That is like arguing whether firefighters are combating a brushfire or a barn-fire, instead of pointing to the real conflagration.
Republicans are at war, against you and me.
If the Tea Partiers were true to their claimed heritage, they would realize that the "Divine Right" claimed by kings in the 18th Century, and against which their ancestors revolted, has been replaced by the "Divine Right" theory of banks.
And, today's Benedict Arnold is the Republican Party.
ADD:
U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I think all of us recognize that we cannot have a circumstance in which a meltdown in the financial sector once again puts the entire economy in peril, and that if there's one lesson that we've learned it's that an unfettered market where people are taking huge risks and expecting taxpayers to bail them out when things go sour is simply not acceptable.
(PBS Newshour Transcript)
"Senate Dems pave way for financial reform vote" by Kevin Drawbaugh, Reuters 4/16/2010
Excerpt
The last unfinished piece of a massive Democratic bill -- new rules for the $450 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market -- was expected to take clearer shape on Friday with the release of proposals from the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The OTC derivatives component is crucially important to Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America, which dominate the unpoliced market.
Lobbyists for the firms were on the defensive after it emerged that Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln planned to propose stricter rules than those approved by the Senate Banking Committee and the House of Representatives.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said the main Senate reform bill must accommodate Lincoln's proposals.
"We hope to get it on the floor next week," Reid told reporters at a briefing, referring to a final bill.
The House approved a sweeping reform bill in December. It would have to be merged with whatever the Senate produces before a final measure could go to President Barack Obama to be signed into law. Obama strongly favors reform.
GOP = Greed of Profit, above ALL else. Forget about ethics or morals (but we will continue to claim we are the party-of-values).
Yes, the GOP is the party-of-values, but by "values" they mean $money$.
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