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CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND SELECT TEN MORE, NOW!

leah's picture
Submitted by leah on Mon, 09/29/2008 - 11:37am

It's still not a done deal, folks. But the House is going to vote sometime today, it looks like.

First read another excellent Stirling Newberry piece; this one is much less technical and spells out why this isn't a crisis that has to be met today and only on Bush/Paulson terms. If this is a crisis of confidence, then why aren't our elected officials reassuring us against panic, instead of inducing it.

And no, I don't believe the answer is that Pelosi, Dodd & Franks want to giveaway billions to Wall St., and don't believe they are "in the tank." I do believe that they been bamboozled.

What we have going for us is that the fear of the rest of Democratic congress critters that they are going to be left holding the bag, taking ownership of a bad Bush plan, and a situation which can and should be laid primarily at the feet of Republicans and the administration they supported so slavishly.

My advice, call your representative it makes sense, then call Kucinich and Kaptur's office to encourage their resistance and ask for guidance as to other members you should call to encourage a "no" vote. Check out the progressive caucus, call all of them.

Be disciplined about your message. There are other, better ways to deal with this crisis; we have institutions in place to deal with the liquidity problem, most of all, don't be rushed - if this is the wrong fix, who will be blamed? All the wrong Democratic people. Give them references to ask their Representative to look at - including Newberry, but also Dean Baker, all kinds of economists. Ask them to hold hearings. Most of all, Bush is talking about sending strong signals to the markets. Okay, why does it have to be Bush's message. Why not a Democratic message. We won't let you sink, but we won't be stampeded over a cliff. If this is that much of a crisis, then Wall St. shouldn't be setting the terms.

For inspiration: some bits from Newberry:

So where is the bill right now? A huge and complex version has just been issued, the last I checked the servers were still swamped to download copies of it. It contains dozens of provisions, but it is still the Paulson Proposal. Namely, he will issue new debt, and buy up unnamed assets. It is better than the original bill in a host of ways – a bill that was so bad that it exhausted the four letter words in the English language, and that is by people who were working to pass some form of the legislation.

Even in the best of times, it would be a huge risk to hand this much power to any executive branch. With an administration that has a track record of lawlessness and favoritism it is folly.

The reality is that there aren't the votes to pass this bill. There aren't the votes to pass this bill.

That's because, it is loaded with land mine Bush provisions. It's been publically doubted by Congress' own top economist.

The provisions that have been added are improvements, but they are window dressing on granting wide discretionary authority to the Treasury Secretary, and un-needed authority. As Ian Welsh notes, Paulson said himself that 150 billion would get us through January, just give him that, and then come back after we've had an election about this. (emphasis mine)

What you should do

It's simple really. Call your representatives and say No. Say it over and over again. Not to this bill, nor to any Paulson Panic bill. The bill is flawed, it is based on a lie. The truth is that the problems in the financial system are based on a bloated war spending binge that now hangs over us. The truth is that we don't need to give this blank check to Paulson now, but could give him a stabilization fund, and come back with a new Congress.

There are links embedded in the original.

Go read the whole thing, especially what Stirling has to say about his pride in what the blogisphere has done during the last week, and then go to it.

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BDBlue's picture
Submitted by BDBlue on

at this point by this Administration, again, then they're too stupid to lead this country. I'm just sayin'.

Now, I'm going to go call my useless rep. who always does what Nancy tells him to do and tell him one more time this bill sucks, albeit in a polite way. Wouldn't want to offend him with my anger over any of this.

God, I'm getting to the point where I hate all of these people.

Submitted by jawbone on

Check out this section, parsed at Big Picture, which points out that the window dressed Paulson Fix (Is In) allows banks to set their own assets' prices--not required to use Mark-to-market-pricing. Now, it will be Mark-to-fantasy-pricing or Mark-to-whatever works for your books-pricing. Or, more precisely, whatever works for your pocket book....

Throughout this crisis, there has been chatter and attempts to stop the freefall in Housing prices -- something that is counter-productive. Unless we want a Japan like decade of recession, we need to allow the various bad assets to seek their own levels via the open market.
...
A classic example of this misguided asset price focus is in the Bailout's suspension of mark-to-market pricing:
SEC. 132. AUTHORITY TO SUSPEND MARK-TO-MARKET ACCOUNTING.

(a) AUTHORITY.--The Securities and Exchange Commission shall have the authority under the securities laws (as such term is defined in section 3(a)(47) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C. 78c(a)(47)) to suspend, by rule, regulation, or order, the application of Statement Number 157 of the Financial Accounting Standards Board for any issuer (as such term is defined in section 3(a)(8) of such Act) or with respect to any class or category of transaction if the Commission determines that is necessary or appropriate in the public interest and is consistent with the protection of investors.*

... Former SEC Chair Arthur Levitt lectures the Congress on why mark-to-market is so important.

"That's why it's both dismaying and puzzling that as Washington debates the Treasury's bailout proposal, some of the largest banking and financial services trade groups are aggressively lobbying the SEC to suspend the mark-to-market, or fair-value, accounting standard currently in place, and to oppose any expansion of it.

To ask for a suspension in fair-value accounting is to ask the market to suspend its judgment. These trade groups claim that the fair-value accounting standard has distorted banks' balance sheets, and has contributed significantly to the market's volatility.

On the contrary, that gets things backward. It is accounting sleights-of-hand that hid the true risk of assets and liabilities these firms were carrying, distorted the markets, and have caused investors to lose the confidence necessary for our markets to function properly."
...
The plan as it is currently constructed fails to recognize that Housing prices still remain elevated, more foreclosures are likely, and that another 10-20% downside in real estate is quite likely.(My emphasis)

What other turds as waiting to be found--and will stink to high heaven no matter how much the spinners try to polish them?

There is no rush. Indeed, since Paulson said $150B could take him through January, why are we rushing to pass this massive giveaway of power and money to this Maladminstration? Why is Obama enabling this? Why are the Dems running this for BushCo?

Bcz fear-mongering works??

(Uh, yes. Simple answers to simple questions, Part Umptieth.

WI Rep Paul Ryan, who had been strongly against the Paulson Fix, is now saying its stinks, is really badly done, but the WH has created a sense of panic and thus he must vote for this awful bill. To ensure the pensioner can take money out of his or her checking account! This is blackmail.

Fearmongering works, babeeee! Wheeeeee! as Atrios might say.)

lambert's picture
Submitted by lambert on

Get on the stick, people!

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Sarah's picture
Submitted by Sarah on

the bailout, call/email and thank him/her. Encourage spreading the resistance everywhere you can, folks.

I, unfortunately, have pro-bailout GOP representation.

We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

leah's picture
Submitted by leah on

It's a killer, and should be a deal-breaker for anyone.

That's an excellent talking point; how can you vote for any bill that gives any Bush official the ability to suspend mark to market accounting. Here's how today's CAP Progress Report puts it:

Furthermore, the bill gives the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission ability to suspend mark-to-market accounting, which could remove market transparency and allow financial institutions to continue "pretending bad assets are good and in the process dra[g] down our economy."

Didn't have a lot of problems getting through to a lot of Representatives. I've been disappointed, too. George Miller, who is one of our best California Democrats is voting for it, so is Lynn Woolsey. Quite a few wouldn't say, or else hadn't let there staff know as yet which way they are voting.

Emails can be an effective way of communicating. Keep it simple, but mention that mark to market suspension. Mention also that the only way this is going to work to help out these "troubled" institutions is if the taxpayers pay more than the troubled assets are worth.

It's harder to impact the House because there are so many of them. Maybe see if you can call Frank's committee and leave a message or an email.

Otherwise, maybe we should be looking to the Senate, especially if the plan is passed with significantly more votes than Republicans. If the Repubs hang back, that might have an impact on Democratic Senators.

lambert's picture
Submitted by lambert on

Just because they are instilling fear in us doesn't mean that they, themselves, feel fear.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Turlock