Kill the bailout: Phones ringing off the hook; student loans, car debt added to proposal
We don’t have to have this trillion-dollar bailout shoved down our throats.
You can make a difference.
Phones are ringing off the hook. Peter Viles at L.A.Land:
A key quote in this morning’s Senate hearing about the Paulson bailout is worth repeating. This comes from Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat:
“Like my colleagues, my phones have been ringing off the hook. The sentiment from Ohioans about this proposal is universally negative.”
Not “overwhelmingly negative.” Not “deeply suspicious.” Not “extremely upset.” Universally negative.
I’ll state the obvious: Members of Congress aren’t generally in the habit of passing historic and spectacularly unpopular legislation five weeks before election day.
Make your voice heard now. Every second counts: 202-224-3121.
***
Quotable: “‘Just because God created the world in seven days doesn’t mean we have to pass this bill in seven days,’ said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas.”
Or at all.
You might want to make a special effort to phone John McCain’s office. He’s waffling and wavering and straddling. Mr. Maverick needs a clue.
Update: Student loans, car loans, and credit card debt have been snuck into the bailout proposal No. No No. Hellllllll, no.
!!!!!!! (Hat tip: STACLU, Pursuing Holiness)
In the dark of night over the weekend when most people were snoozing, the Treasury dramatically expanded its bailout plan to include buying student loans, car loans, credit card debt and any other “troubled” assets held by banks.
The changes, which were included in draft language that also opened the bailout program to foreign banks with extensive loan operations in the United States, potentially added tens of billions of dollars to the cost of the program.
Although it was a major addition to what was already the nation’s largest-ever bailout, it did not become part of the debate between Democrats and the Treasury over details of the program. A Monday counterproposal by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd included such consumer loans as well as mortgages, just as the Treasury’s draft did Saturday night.
“The costs of the bailout will be significantly higher than originally considered or acknowledged,” said Joshua Rosner, managing director of Graham Fisher & Co., who charged that the Treasury and Federal Reserve have not been “forthright” about the ultimate cost to the public. The plan gives Treasury the discretion to buy the non-mortgage loans and securities in consultation with the Fed.
Conservatives cited the move as a sign that the massive plan to take over bad mortgage debt already is opening the door to further government bailouts.
***
Get your GOP senator off the fence:
Many members of the U.S. Senate blasted the Bush administration’s Wall Street bailout plan Tuesday, but no senator has come forward so far with an explicit pledge to kill the $700 billion proposal.
The rules of the Senate, unlike the House , give individual lawmakers substantial power to delay or halt legislation, but three Senate aides said there were no clear signs yet of that power being exercised.
As the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on the plan put forward by the Treasury Department, aides said much would depend on Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the committee’s top Republican, who was sharply critical at the hearing.
The outlook for Treasury’s plan would dim greatly if Shelby were to move to block the bill that is expected to emerge soon from congressional debate over the plan, the aides said.
The Democrat-controlled Congress and the Republican Bush administration are in negotiations over specifics of the bailout bill, with the House aiming to get legislation to a floor vote possibly Friday…
…Other senators, including Republicans Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, have expressed strong concerns.
But the aides said these lawmakers also have stopped short of warning they would work to block the bill.
***
Previous:
Kill the bailout: Newt Gingrich gets on board
Kill the bailout: The foreign bank angle
Kill the bailout: Will the real fiscal conservatives please stand up?
Why Henry Paulson must be “contained”
The Mother of All Bailouts = The Death of Fiscal Conservatism
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Trackbacks
- Call to Action: Kill the Bill | The American Pundit
- Federal bailout expands to include student and car loans : Pursuing Holiness
- eCache » Blog Archive » At What Cost?
- Make the call….. « LeadChucker’s blog
- Kill the Bill: ‘No’ To The Bailout - Call (202) 224-3121 « Pocket Change - Now Lint Free!
- Webloggin » Kill the Bill: 202-224-3121, If They Don’t Listen Vote Them Out
- Bailing On The Bailout Bill « Blog Entry « Dr. Melissa Clouthier
- Opposition Mounts to Paulson Plan
- Kill [the] Bill: We DON’T Have to Have this Bailout « Truth and Reason
- Opposition Mounts to Paulson Plan | Adam's Blog
- Drumwaster's Rants
- BizzyBlog » Things I’d Lie to Post About Today ….. (092408, Morning)
- Right Wing News
- Kill the Bill! « Decidedly Right
- WeatherOutpost12
- Swamp Hermit’s *QUICK* Bits « The Swamp Hermit’s Report
- “We Don’t Have To Have This $Trillion Bailout Shoved Down Our Throats” - Black Bear Blog - Black Bear Blog - The Politics of Hunting, Fishing and the Outdoors. Protecting our American Heritage.
- “We Don’t Have To Have This $Trillion Bailout Shoved Down Our Throats” : Conservative Zone
- My obligatory Stop the Bailout and Cuff Dodd post. « Illiberal Virtuosity
- Michelle Malkin » Here comes the $25 billion automakers’ bailout
- Kill the Billout « Kevin’s Korner
- There's My Two Cents
- Random-American » Bailouts and baseballs through windows
- Reid believes the Senate is now only 98 members strong… « The Sadim Touch
- Good ‘ol Boy Economy Wreckers « ULTIMATE TRUTH
- $700 Billion Bailout: See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. (UPDATED) « Republican Party of Jefferson County, TN
- The Courage to do Nothing « Constitution Club
- Michelle Malkin » All aboard the bailout bandwagon? Hell, no!
- OpenMarket.org » Archive » Bailout Gets More Costly Due to “Bipartisan” Deal; Foolish Limits on Foreclosure Should Be Removed
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So, not only am I being boned for idiotically paying my mortgage on time, I am also going to get boned for repaying my car loans, student loans and credit cards on time? And the people who just borrowed more than they could afford get to walk away scot-free? How the hell does that work?
Bankruptcy is now a class action affair.
Anybody else besides me think that if the government can spend 1 trillion to bail out these companies that they are overtaxing us? Instead of giving a trillion dollars to quasi-government companies give it back to the people it was stolen from.
I will be calling our RINO and Democrap representatives today, for sure.
By the way, great column Michelle, “Illegal Immigration and the Mortgage Mess” it’s at townhall right now, but I’m sure it will be posted here shortly.
nyc, prolly the escort for the Achmanutjobs plane the he!! outa here.
This government and its incompetent, self serving, brain dead politicians is absolutely useless. Trust and faith in the government is gone . . . watch for the flame out because we’re about ready to crash and burn.
I’m a long time conservative Republican, but on this one I think Michelle is Way Off Base. In fact she’s making me very angry.
I listened to most of the Senate hearing yesterday. I have a lot more confidence in Ben and Hank than I have in all those dim wit senators put together. After all Ben spend his whole professional career studying the depression, what caused it,and what mistakes were made.
The media is doing the country a great disservice in the way they are reporting this crisis. In the end, the taxpayer will NOT be out for $700B. It will be a lot less if managed correctly. Please study the history of the previous rescues and the Chrysler loan.
The primary blame for this mess rests with Congress. They pushed the financial community to make home ownership “affordable” for lower income people who in more sane time could not qualify for a 15/30 year fixed mortgage with 10 percent down. Congress also caused this mess by participating in the mismanagement of the two GSEs.
It’s time for the public to wake up and get behind this financial plan. Yes, there should be over sight and yes people on Wall Street who crested fraud should be prosecuted.
Come on Michelle, get out of your ideological skin and lets move forward.
Michelle, what is your plans??????
No money for people who refuse to work and pay their debts.
And the borders would be secure, if they were managed correctly.
I wonder if I can get some kind of refund on my paid student loans? Yep, I actually paid them back. What a concept.
I’d love to find some of these people who are in default and find out why they “can’t” pay their loans back. Maybe that degree in cultural anthropology wasn’t such a good idea after all. Idiots. We could get John Stossel to investigate. I’m sure he would find that a majority of them are choosing not to pay them back.
I went to the bank and got a comment about the bank whose name was on the check. And so it begins.
I wouldn’t be surprised. People like us who are paying their debts are actually doing worse than people who don’t and are getting bailed out.
One issue not being discussed is how this expenditure will affect DoD budgets. I anticipate that the military’ ability to maintain and upgrade systems will be greatly impacted. Look for the armed services to be required to delay or elimanate program plans.
Rewarding those who lost at the craps table to be made whole is BS
Excellent article on how the Dems one of the MAIN reasons we have this mess:
Bloomberg article
Those types of people don’t care about credit scores because so many lenders are willing to give them money for cars, houses, credit cards, furniture, etc. There seems to be no incentive to pay back the money they spent. I am trying to raise my girls to be smart when it comes to money. I’ve still got learning to do, but they can learn from my mistakes.
History has never been a strong point with the fools on the hill. Government intervention made the great depression longer and deeper than in needed to be. People could not depend on the system to work because they never knew what the government would do to it next, which destroyed confidence and the investment that relies on confidence that the rules are reliable.
An economy cannot run on the whim of a few cowards looking to do “something” to protect their jobs.
KILL THE BILL
This bailout will only delay the inevitable. The US is starting to pay the price for years and years of living in a financial la-la land where everybody gets everything and nobody is left out. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid failures are looming on the horizon. Consumers have been spending like drunken sailors for 20 years. Endless government programs meant to make life more fair funded with deficit spending. Shielding children from harsh realities of life and teaching them they can have it all without ever sacrificing or delaying their gratification. Refusal to deal with the flood of cheap labor coming across the borders illegally. Things are starting to come to a head and no bailout will change the inevitable. Americans simply have to face reality, start living within their means and make those that won’t carry their weight suffer for their own slackness. Being stupid and irresponsible should hurt. We are about to find this out as a nation, no matter who wins in November.
The mortgage crisis explained by two British comedians, Bird and Fortune:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g
The video is from February 2008 and – sadly enough – explains the crisis better than any of the CNBC experts. Insane credits handed out to people who bankers very well know would never be able to pay the money back:
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/11/30/bird_and_fortune_on_subprime/
If I understand this proposal correctly (and that’s certainly debatable since my expertise is not in the economic realm) the government will underwrite or secure these subprime and high risk loans. The individuals that took out the loans are not being forgiven their debt. They still owe the money. That said, there’s no question that a number of people will default on these loans. They will suffer the consequences in bankruptcy and bad credit ratings. For others the gov’t will attempt to revise the terms of the loan so that they can continue paying, albeit at reduced rates. So, nobody is being forgiven their debt. But, the taxpayers are going to take the hit on all the defaulting loans instead of the large private corporations or the two GSEs, Fred Mac and Fannie Mae. And, the rationale for doing this is because otherwise these defaulting loans would cause those institutions to go under, creating a deepening financial crises in the country and threatening our entire economy. Is this correct? If so, it really stinks, and there’s a lot of blame to be assigned, but what’s the alternative?
“If the American people ever allow private banks to
control the issue of their money, first by inflation
and then by deflation, the banks and corporations
that will grow up around them (around the banks),
will deprive the people of their property until their
children will wake up homeless on the continent
their fathers conquered. ”
-Thomas Jefferson
No – do not bail out crooked investment bankers on Wall Street. Let them fall early and hard.
Godspeed to the investigators within the FBI to find and prosecute any and all malfeasance.
I wonder whether we (GOP) are better off if the Community Organizer wins this election. This allows our Party the opportunity to re-group as an activist minority opposition party. We can reform our vision and emerge yet stronger. I have supreme confidence that an Obama-Pelosi-Reid administration will screw up America totally. Socialism, political correctness, unchecked immigration, wealth re-distribution, a depleted military, and decreased American international standing via capitulation to Chinese, Russian and Middle East interests will ultimately decrease Democratic standing with the public. Obama is likely to be a one-term president with a historical rating equivalent to Jimmy Carter, given current economic conditions, his policy proposals, and lack of experience.
@tampadave – Yeah, that’s an appealing thought, but with Israel (and possible a couple of American cities) a radioactive wasteland, three (or more) fascism-friendly Supremes installed on the bench to find (or lose) whatever rights the Obamessiah and the fascist Dems want in or out, and our economy in ruins, who would want to take back the wreckage in 2012?
Sorry, Obama and the Dems must be defeated NOW. Too bad there isn’t a party and candidates up to the task. When bloggers and commenters are able to articulate winning strategies (e.g. run ads pointing out that the Dems blocked reform in 2005) but the Stupid Party remains silent and McCain rants on like a lunatic about how putting Andy Cuomo on the case, it’s hard to feel any other way than we, as a nation, are totally screwed.
No, but they were scared. They held the majority by the thinnest of margins and didn’t want any negative press to decrease their numbers, which is what would have happened had they given the MSM ammo of portraying the Republicans as opposing home ownership for low-income families.
What’s more, you know this, so why are you asking, unless it’s just to push-back for the Dodd and the Dems?
Forget the phone. It’s so easy to send a quick message to your senator.
http://xxxxxxx.senate.gov Just fill in the xxxxx with the last name of your senator. You’ll be at their home page. Just click on the contact me link.
You’ll see a web form where I suggest you leave a polite but determined message.
I’ve emailed both my senators about my disapproval.
Called the CA senators but their voicemail was full…called John McCain’s office and was able to leave a message…my message was that if he votes in favor of this then he has lost MY vote.
I just emailed by representative, and both of My senators… Although both are democrats, its high time something was done.
Well I called my Republican congressman. He’s not for the bailout. I also called my Dem NJ senators Tweedledumb and Tweedledummer. I also called McCain.
I said no bailout NEVER.
that ain’t gonna happen. the Ezekial scenario...
that may happen…although it will most likely be an EMP over the northeast…
On September 24th, 2008 at 9:53 am, Old Scout said:
I did the same. Both Kerry & Kennedy wanted a phone number, so I entered their office phone.
OMG! Sherrod Brown speaking up!?! My Democrat senator may actually restore my faith in him.
I just wonder if he also will admit that it was Democrat “feel good” and “politically correct” legislation and strong arm tactics that laid the foundations for this crisis?
I have written all 3 of my representatives in Washington multiple times stressing my lack of support for bailing out these institutions and costing us money we do not have. When I get some time–maybe this Friday evening–I’m going to put together my own blog posting summarizing this mess. I want to show how this came about because of improper government/political meddling in the mortgage loan marketplace and how it has led to the unintended consequence of bringing our financial system to almost total collapse.
I already sent an Email, then tried to call the listed number, was sent to Mcains voice mail but…..his box was full….. keep on trucking….
I’ve sometimes struggled to pay my student loans but I’ve always made payments, even if I had to pull all kinds of strings to do so or pay them late. I have ZERO sympathy for defaulters. I sucked it up, so can they.
We’re really becoming a nanny state where we have the government saving us from our own debts! No responsibility!
Two things:
1) That’s not an “article”. It’s an opinion piece. There is a HUGE difference.
2) The author works for the McCain campaign. Did you notice the note at the bottom?
(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He is an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in the 2008 presidential election. The opinions expressed are his own.)
Like many of us, I’m reading as much as I can to try and understand the detail of this financial mess. And it’s not easy. Certainly columns like this only serve to distract and distort reality.
in the press? you’re kidding right?
its real easy, if we hadn’t forced banks to give loans to illegals, and others unable to pay it back, to ostensibly combat ‘racism’ then we wouldn’t have this mess. If we didn’t have Freddie and Fannie to facilitate this mess, it wouldn’t have happened. who was running those ‘companies’ Gorelick and Raines….democrats.
gippergirl, sadly my bet is that he doesn’t even show up to vote. This is too much of a hot potato for him. Wouldn’t it be great if he showed the same courage that he showed in Hanoi, voted against this bill and gave all the “aye” voters a thumbs up as he walked back to his seat? Sigh.
Tettes – OK, opinion piece. (Like articles today are so impartial!?!?! What a difference!) So what about it was incorrect? I have been reading a lot, too. The link gave a pretty good idea of how this happened. Are there contributory causes? Sure. But the dems have a lot of the blame on their shoulders.
KILL HERE, KILL NOW, PAY LESS