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A Breathtaking Insult to the Constitution: Bail Out on This Bailout
Rev. JESSE JACKSON, Sr.
Counterpunch
Wednesday, Sept 24, 2008
Are we witnessing the death of the republic? Sound hysterical? Look at how Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson proposes to govern the $700 billion — some $2,000 for every man, woman and child in America — that he wants to bail out the banks.
He wants the power to buy “Troubled Assets from any Financial Institution . . . on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary,” and his decisions “may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency,” according to the text of the U.S. Treasury Department’s legislative proposal. In other words, give him the $700 billion to spend as he sees fit and shut up.
The occasion for this breathtaking insult to the Constitution is the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression. Essentially, we are being held for ransom: Give us the money on our terms or the banks will take down the global economy.
(Article continues below)
We know how we got here. Decades of reckless economic policies and batty ideas — deregulation, disemboweling regulatory agencies, allowing a shadow banking system to develop without limits, market fundamentalists preaching nonsense about markets always being efficient and self-correcting — left Wall Street’s speculators free to gamble on their own. They borrowed heavily, invented complex new instruments, and pocketed millions along the way. Much of it depended on housing prices going up. Predatory lenders huckstered complicated loans to folks, with no stake in whether they had any chance to repay them.
When housing prices peaked out, banks found themselves with billions in toxic paper, and trillions in exposed credit swaps. Now they want free use of $700 billion, which they say will get the crisis under control.
Treasury Secretary Paulson says Congress must act immediately. Well, wait just one minute. If it takes $700 billion to bail out Paulson’s former colleagues on Wall Street, some basic questions have to be answered:
Who pays? The rewards of the economic growth of the last decade went overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans. Send the bill to those who had the party. We need an excise tax on high incomes to pay for cleaning up the mess.
Who decides? We can’t allow the folks who helped create the mess be in charge of cleaning it up. We need an independent entity, governed by a board with union and consumer representation and the power to make the rules for any bailout.
Who benefits? If taxpayers are bailing out banks, taxpayers should get partial ownership — so if the banks do return to profitability, we get some of our money back.
Who gets helped? We can’t just bail out Wall Street and ignore Main Street. The bailout must be bottom up, not just top-down. Any bailout must include provisions for renegotiating mortgages, freezing foreclosures and keeping people in their homes.
What gets the economy going? It’s not enough to bail out the banks. We need serious public investment in the real economy — in rebuilding schools and sewers, in green jobs and conservation that will put people back to work.
Who is independent? The oversight committees and the overseers must come off Wall Street’s payroll. Financial industry lobbyists should be banned from the beltway for the next year. Legislators=2 0should refuse Wall Street PAC and executive donations for at least the next two years.
Who is accountable? No executive of a firm that is bailed out should be paid more than the president of the United States.
Will the Congress act with the wisdom to put us back on track? Or will it squander even more money on Wall Street without making America better? We’d better help Congress make the right choice.
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21 Responses to “A Breathtaking Insult to the Constitution: Bail Out on This Bailout”
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September 24th, 2008 at 5:22 am
spread this you tube virally its on the front of http://www.gcnlive.com about paulson and the bailout, Alex jones http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....nlive.com/ thanks very much call everyone in congress now. say no , hell no. April Gallop http://www.thepentacon.com
September 24th, 2008 at 5:23 am
Yea, Sure they will
September 24th, 2008 at 5:27 am
filthy pigs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have to check and see what Chuck Baldwin (prez-Constitution Party) has to say about this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8fgAS0w9Q8
September 24th, 2008 at 6:39 am
Typical Communist twaddle.
“We can’t just bail out Wall Street and ignore Main Street” is, in fact, a quote from the Communist Party USA: http://cpusa.org/article/view/985/
Insult to the Constitution? Yes.
Due to deregulation and “predatory” lending (whatever that is)? Not even close.
It is due to Democrat corruption, pure and simple:
“The issue is not a runaway, unregulated free market. It’s Democrat policies — and we know it, because if it was some Republican’s fault, they’d have hearings.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....KSoiNbnQY0
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/I.....6270814143
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/.....rcID=36048
And nobody who quotes the CPUSA gets to even mention the Constitution, “Rev.” Parasite.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:11 am
no bailout
September 24th, 2008 at 11:17 am
i see the real enemy of the United States of America and its the “Fed”and the hinchman who reside inside the belly of the Beast…….time to wake up people and do whats right…..
September 24th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Why not start from the bottom up? Give all the ignorants who bought into loans they could not pay,the billions to pay the banks,why not indeed,could you imagine the outrage from the now disinterested public when in a outpouring of generosity unheard of in the annals of the governing body of the “republic” ( yeah right !) there neighbors who made unwise financial decisions suddenly had a free and clear mortgage. Yet the same silent majority stands mute while their govt. throws a trillion more dollars of debt onto the backs of their children and grandchildren.Speak now or forever hold your peace,you are now entering into an unholy union with the Beast.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Why not start with confiscating the personal fortunes of all the banksters, gamblers, speculators and frauds who reaped enormous profits, salaries and bonuses with this scam. I’m sure they will very quickly discover that bailout is not necessary when they have to pay for it themselves.
September 24th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Oh boy here we go again – the hyper capitalists, the ‘blame the people’ or ‘blame the Democrats’ contingent is spewing the usual idiocy. I detect a whiff of racism here as what Jackson is saying is essentially what many other right wingers have been saying in one form or another.
One. . .more. . . time. . .for. . . the. . . slow:
Whenever the capitalist class can buy legislatures wholesale – THIS IS THE RESULT. You can rage and hate on me all you want for saying that but this has nothing to do with collectivism – except for the wealthy.
The ‘gub’mint’ gave these ‘free marketers’ everything they wanted when they gutted Glass-Steagall and so many of the other Depression era safeguards designed to prevent EXACTLY what has happened.
I’m with ‘not amused’ — confiscate the rat bastards wealth and return the money to the American people. Destroy the whole rotten greed-run-amok system and start all over from the bottom up.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
The Republic died with the civil war. That’s why they all keep calling us a Democracy. The foreign bankers came in and renamed there corporation The United States. And you think they are talking about the these 50 sovereign states. I pledge allegiance to the republic not the (DE-facto) democracy. Question? When was the first Presidential executive (dictator) order.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
The rescue Program is brilliant. It will be the best investment the Govenment ever made and the people will be much, much better off. If we could implement more ideas like this we could save Social security. We are already up $1 Billion on the AIG loan. We have a 12% coupon and 89% of an operating company…what a deal!!
Too bad all the ranters don’t know how to make a buck…that’s why they rant on the internet all night…..
September 24th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
How about calling the bluff on these treasonous turkeys and let the whole thing crash, if that’s what it takes. They are bluffing, and the only thing that will crash in the near future is the crystal palaces of the super-rich bankers who are rubbing their hands together drooling
over the “bailout”. We say “HELL NO!” You sonsabitches robbed, speculated and lied your way into your mess, now figure a way out WITHOUT robbing us of $700 billion+ more.
IT’S ENOUGH OF THIS CRIMINAL HIJACKING. Don’t give ‘em a thin dime.
September 24th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
If they pass it, I’d recommend everyone stop paying taxes and go to barter whenever possible. They use our taxes to bailout these Wall Street heathens, but they can’t give us healthcare. They use our taxes to illegally invade sovereign countries, but they can’t give us education. Enough is enough! The face of the American government changed a long time ago and the American people are now seeing what it has become. All the bandages are off and there is nothing more than a grotesque all-consuming monster staring back at us.
The success of any resistance relies on the elimination of key figures.
September 24th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
you’re a genius Bill
September 24th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I say let them take down the global economy then we the people can institute our own and the perportrators of this mess can rot in our jail cells
September 24th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I say let them bring down the world economy then we the people can institute our own as they rot in our prison cells
September 24th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
The rescue is actually a scheme to make a killing (money, that is). Look around: has the sky fallen? No. Paulson, who before becoming chicken little was CEO of Goldman Sachs, found a way to get a $700 billion – $1.5 trillion slush fund for his own private use and the use of his buddies.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Bill, where is this billion we’re “up” going to come from ? Don’t tell me it’s coming from anything related to AIG. Considering we just loaned them 85 billion to stay in business I doubt they’ll be paying us back anytime soon. This sounds like the same funny money mentality that helped get us to where we are today.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:51 am
they will fake the results no matter what we do.
they will get the money.
i have friends in the military out west most of them new recruits in texas and arizona.
they say they will not deploy until 2010.
WE ARE ALREADY SCREWED.
they will use regional recruits in other states after they anounce the “ELECTION” result.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:24 am
They need to be shoot
September 26th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Bill,when you say we,you must be including us with the fed reserve,and the new world order.If and when any returns are noted,the return will not even touch the interest that has accrued.Make money bill,id father make green paper,a debt note that fools everyone ,but of course not you bill.