Posted by
Professor Eisenstein on Thursday, October 02, 2008 11:20:32 PM
The so-called Federal Wall Street bailout is going to cause Senator McCain to lose this election. Sadly McCain does not seem to understand that in pursuing a goal that is going to go against his ultimate interests and the Nation’s economic welfare. During the process, McCain has fought for the betterment of the American economy while at every turn Senator Barack Obama and the Democrats have thwarted him.
McCain may ultimately win on the bailout but the forgotten American taxpayer will lose.
In the race for the presidency, McCain is not behind because of his debate performance. Both candidates did poorly during the debate's first third, which is when most people watched, when the debate focus was about the economic bailout. Obama’s confusion and avoidance was real; he wants to dodge the tough questions as much as he could and Jim Leherer allowed him to do it. McCain reflects his own conflict between being blamed politically for not boosting the economy and his belief in fairness and justice.
There is nothing fair or just about this bailout. Actually quite the opposite: it rewards the incompetent, thieves, and slaps the bill on the backs of the forgotten Americans. On Wednesday, Senator McCain’s vote to support the bailout in the Senate probably seals his fate in the presidential race. Without some dramatic event, he has just handed to Senator Obama the easy victory on economics he could not achieve on his own.
The politicians are talking about “greed” being the problem. That is a meaningless copout and everyone knows it. Greed is one of those words that apply to everyone. Who is not guilty of greed? In addition, most of the time greed is good. The problem here is not greed per se, but specific lies and thievery by some individuals. The lies and thievery worked well for the few financial types at the top and for the socialist comrades (Maxine Waters, Barnie Franks, Chris Dodd, Barak Obama, etc.) who have wanted to re-distribute America to the poor, the downtrodden, and the “un-resident” by using the Nation's mortgage system. This all worked well until the pyramid of cards called the housing bubble collapsed.
This is not a permanent problem; but a temporary aberration.
The only problem is that it exposed the liars and the comrades.
The forgotten taxpayers wants fairness and justice metted out to those people first; then address the short fall in credit. Not the other way around which how it is now occurring.
What is so hard about that request?
The American taxpayer wants fairness and justice. They know that once they have turned over more than $700 billion that Wall Street wants they will not have any advantage to achieve justice and fairness. Someone caused this. We know it was partly greed; but it was more a consequence of direct government policy that no one has acknowledged and whose consequence the hard working Americans will be held holding the bag.
The American public knows that Senator Chris Dodd the chairman of the committee directly negotiating the bailout is one of the people who got a sweetheart deal on his mortgage and so did Senator Barak Obama among many others (all from Countrywide Financial.) That is just the beginning of the largess to the Senate. Why are these people not being made to pay this money back? Democratic Representative Barnie Frank was in the middle of a long serious relationship with one of the top executive of Freddie Mac, the organization over whom his Committee had oversight authority. Franks’ “partner” developed the mortgage derivative that gave easy mortgages to the “unworthy” and “unkempt” for whom hardworking Americans are now left holding the bag. For whom is Barnie Franks negotiating? During the 2004 Congressional hearings, he specifically pointed out that there was nothing wrong with the accounting and derivative practices of the Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE’s) his lover was running. Neither one of them is paying anything for their bad behavior nor are they sufficiently ashamed to stop acting holier than everyone else.
Where is John McCain when the American people need him?
The American taxpayer wants accountability and assurance that the handing out of our money will result in real changes in the system of the Wall Street Democrats gorging while Main Street Republicans and taxpayers are serving the meal.
The one overriding factor that McCain had going for him is the belief by most Americans (even ones who may not ultimately support him for president), that he would never be part of the fleecing the regular American citizen. That was the agreement of honor that we had with him since his days in the military.
He has now lost that trump card. The one remaining outside possibility is that Governor Sarah Palin, in the VP debates, can get it back. It may require her clarification or even repudiation of McCain’s erratic support of the regular American who depended on him. That is a big burden for her to pull off.
McCain, this is where you let us down: “(Regular Main Street Americans) have not forgotten that just two years ago, in 2006, Fannie Mae was found to have intentionally overstated its earnings by $10.6 billion (that is with a ‘b’) to meet their projected targets. Yet, top executives simply received civil fines, and no criminal charges were ever pursued.” Now these same Democrats and their comrades in Freddie Mac and Wall Street want our support and trust. John it is not there. You were supposed to fight for us against these Democratic thieves. If not you, then who?
Ironically, together with Obama, you ask us to believe that justice and fairness is to be addressed after the money is distributed. When has that ever happened? You will not have control over that, even with your best intentions, and you know it. That will be the case even if by some miracle you win the presidency following your disastrous vote in support of the “bailout” stripped of fairness and justice.
The forgotten American taxpayer, who has worked by the rules, asked for something very simple: solve the economic crisis; but ensure that justice and fairness prevail in the treatment of those who got us here (either the public or private individuals or entities.)
This is the least that the American public deserves.