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Senate Moves to Pressure House to Agree to Bush's Bailout Plan - It's His Legacy, After All - But Is It Your Final Fleecing?
Senate to vote on financial rescue plan, with sweeteners aimed at gaining House OK
By Andrew Taylor | ABCNews.com
President Bush's plan to rescue U.S. financial markets is headed for a Senate vote Wednesday night after leaders there agreed to add tax breaks for businesses and the middle class and increase deposit insurance in an attempt to revive the legislation rejected by the House.
The surprise move by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appeared likely to win a big vote in the Senate that would put pressure on the House to go along and send the measure to the White House.
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his GOP rival, John McCain, planned to fly to Washington for the Senate vote, as did Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Adding a set of popular business tax breaks and legislation to prevent more than 20 million middle-class taxpayers from feeling the bite of the alternative minimum tax promised to win House GOP votes for the plan even as it angered moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats concerned about the tax cuts adding to the deficit.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement that suggested she does not like the move but did not reveal her plans. Another House vote on the rescue plan could come by week's end.
"The Senate will vote tomorrow night and the Congress will work its will," Pelosi said Tuesday. The expected support of both Obama and McCain, however, makes it difficult for Pelosi to ship the measure back to the Senate with a different set of vote-getting add-ons.
The Senate legislation also will contain an increase in the government's $100,000 cap on insured bank deposits, part of a move by lawmakers, Bush and the two presidential candidates to try to reassure markets that the plan will pass this week.
The measure failed in the House on Monday in a stunning vote that shook the stock and credit markets. Though the Dow Jones industrials rebounded Tuesday, supporters of the administration's plan said passage by week's end still was a must.
The House vote was a stinging setback to leaders of both parties. The administration's proposal, still the heart of the legislation under consideration, would allow the government to buy bad mortgages and other deficient assets held by troubled financial institutions. If successful, advocates of the plan believe, that would help lift a major weight off the already sputtering national economy.
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The people have spoken and said no bailout of the banks. Help the people who need help. That is fine. How come our government officials can't understand this? I wonder if it is because they are paid so much money from the banks. That's right kids. The banks pay for them to fleece us -- the sheeple.
4Peace
The Republicrats that are owned by and run by the corporations will Ram this bail-out OVER AND OVER until is goes through just like they did the FISA wire-tapping cop-out bill. Again the people will loose. We must get RID if the two parties before we will have a chance to save our democracy. Bust your butts for the third party candidate of you choice and kick the lesser-of-two evils voting addiction!
www.votenader.org
AL K.
Here's the problem with your theory of "...third party candidate of your choice" idea:
There are MANY other options besides the Corporocrats. If you ask people to go "shotgunnin'" there will be no significant percentages to make a statement. It is too late now, but if Progressives were able to agree on just ONE other-party candidate and rally behind them, it would have made sense. That is the problem with making change in this country--ORGANIZING for a consensus. This assault on congressional phone lines and e-mails was the closest I've ever seen to that...EVER!
There is a problem with YOUR thinking also and you said it yourself: "It is too late now". It is to late for EITHER of the two-party corporate stooges to bail us out even of they intended to do that, and they don't. Both support the same old crap! A vote for EITHER of them will not fix the problem. They ARE the problem! Even if the lesser of the two evils was elected (not appointed by election rigging) by a landslide there would be business as usual. WE LOOSE NOTHING by starting a movement WAY from business as usual! It's true that we can't all agree on a single third party to work for, but we can pull enough votes AWAY from the "Republicrats" to make the average person realize that a third party will become electable. Realize that the ONLY reason third parties have no chance is because we all THINK they don't! We, the voters, decide who is "electable", not the stinking news media. Someday the voters will realize that and it's not going to happen quickly. It must start small and build over time. The big question is which comes first, change or the big crash. Just because we ARE out of time, I think it will be the crash!
Change MIGHT just begin HERE!
Al K.
Re-read what I said. "It's too late now" meant too late to get behind ONE other non-mainstream candidate and put the numbers together. 1% here and 1% there shows NOTHING!
I know what you meant! I'm point out that it is ALSO to late no matter WHO we vote FOR. To put this more simply, we must vote for third parties not to expect one to be elected now, we know that won't happen, but to pave the way for them to be elected LATER! Continuing down our current path will lead us nowhere but to the business as usual that is marching all of us into a brick wall! Continuing to vote for the lesser of two evils is continuing to vote for evil! STOP IT!
BTW: Nader alone is poling at 6% with NO PUBLICITY AT ALL, not 1%. All it takes a 33% to make a 3 way race. Even 20% would scare the crap out of the Republicrats! Add all the third party candidates together and you have a number that may challenge them.
www.votenader.org.
Al k.
As a representative of your constituents, we expect you to represent us and vote according to our will [as long as it is compliant with the rule of law and the Constitution]. Apparently you will not. The American people on Monday via a tsunami of protests clearly made their will known – we oppose this bailout especially when it has been hastily thrown together without public hearings and appropriation committee meetings to adequately explore what needs to be done and the best way to go about doing it. I fully expect you to oppose the will of your constituents and vote yes which leads me to ask the question, who are you representing – could it possibly be some of the 35,000 registered lobbyists in Washington?
Do not vote yes for this bailout, we need time to address and explore this issue. For example, Swiss investor Marc Faber, known for a long track record of good calls and a fine grasp of financial markets history, confirms the estimate earlier in the week by Ken Ohmae that the US needs a salvage operation much bigger than the one envisaged by the Treasury plan, and the damage may come to $5 trillion. ``The $700 billion is really nothing,'' Faber said in a television interview. ``The treasury is just giving out this figure when the end figure may be $5 trillion.'' With this frightening prospect in mind, vote NO and begin the search for a credible solution that will not burden us taxpayers who were not responsible for creating this mess. Who created this mess? – read on!
By mid-March last year, when Bear Stearns collapsed, Jimmy Cayne [fifteen years at the top of this firm], rushed from Wall Street by chopper to the private Hollywood Golf Club in New Jersey to play 18 holes before dark. He had already relinquished the reins, handing over the chief executive's role to Alan Schwartz. When Schwartz went cap in hand to the New York Fed for a $30 billion bailout, Cayne was said to be competing in the North American Bridge Championship in Detroit. Cayne and his wife, Patricia, sold all their 5.6 million shares in Bear Stearns – worth as much as $1.2 billion in January 2007 – for $61.3 million at the end of March this year. The couple recently bought two adjacent apartments in New York's plush Plaza building for $28.2 million. He left with a $30 million "golden goodbye" – enough to do up his Park Avenue property and a mock Tudor mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Are you prepared to bailout the likes of Jimmy Cayne [and other executives whose greed and negligence created this mess] and place an additional debt burden of $700 billion dollars [which will probably total $5 trillion] on your constituents? We have made our voice clear – no bailout, no way, no how without appropriate public hearings and no additional costs to taxpayers. Call Representative Marcy Kaptur to inquire how this can be done.
Are you representing me, a constituent and taxpayer, or Wall Street? I will find out this evening when the Senate votes.