A critical – and radical – component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 (which ironically reminds one of the popular name of the portion of the 1937 Housing Act that paved the way for subsidized affordable housing ) of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that’s so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one’s hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety:
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
In short, the so-called “mother of all bailouts,” which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People’s duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch – who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.
We are taking your money, and don’t dare ask any questions. Could Congress be any more impotent?
Found by Ian Warner
The US is turning into Mexico, where the thieves have no shame or accountability.
YAY!
I hope that this is a wake-up to the “fiscally conservative” republican party. Your party is no different that the democrats-both are corporate owned.
Now get on your knees and serve your corporate masters.
So what’s new??? Declaring an part of the administration to be exempt from oversight, laws, even the Constitution… this has become the way that Bush and company run the country.
Who is writing this
sh*tlegislation? Cheney? Just say NO!With an economy based on unbridled debt abatement and the serfdom of the taxpayer, the US now has an aristocracy.
Haven’t we all seen Obama already characterize this as (paraphrased): “and now the same folks who brought us this problem by under regulation and lax enforcement want to solve the problem by having no oversight at all.”
Yea. The major and obvious errors of this bailout need to be corrected, otherwise, it won’t be the Bush Admin that pulls the October Surprise coup, it will be the Bush Handlers doing it in September.
Every day I also come to think maybe the bail out isn’t really a good thing either. Seems in the main it just encourages the delay in making changes that need to be made anyway. So–a delay in the harm occuring, but all the harm still occuring while a few major culprits get their bonuses paid in the meantime.
Another fine republican deal for the USA and the middleclass taxpayers.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is now on record saying that without the $700 billion bail-out there will be a recession, higher unemployment and more home foreclosures.
The thing is, there is going to be a recession, higher unemployment and more home foreclosures – no matter what happens.
I’d rather we keep the $700 billion (that we don’t have – we’ll be borrowing it from the Chinese).
IMPEACH BUSH NOW !!!
Looks like the angry liberals woke up late today. You’re not going to make it to the unemployment office at this rate.
WTF ?!?!?!?!? Tell me this is not real? Vote this sucker down or pull the language!
What difference would it make. Bush pleaded with Congress in 2005 to put more regulations on Fannie and Freddie. He was told: “These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
McCain (and others) proposed legislation (S190) to fix this problem years ago. Democrats stopped it in committee.
But I forget, everything is the Republicans fault.
It’s hard to comprehend, but for $700B they could purchase 2,000,000 homes at $350,000 each and give them away. Or maybe simply buy them and bulldoze them, that would certainly cut down on some of the excess inventory, yes?
#11. Calin said- “wahhh” “wahhh” Democrats did this first, *sniff*, stop blaming my party *sniff*….wahhhhhhhhhhh!
THIS is whats wrong with the country idiot. They are all to blame. The editor placed the blame at Congress as well as the Bush Admin. What a fucking baby you and James Hill are.
#7 – Chuck
>>The thing is, there is going to be a
>>recession, higher unemployment and more home
>>foreclosures – no matter what happens.
The thing is, after 8 years of Dumbya, there’s ALREADY a recession, higher unemployment, and more home foreclosures.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
They aren’t taking money. They don’t have a trillion sitting around. They are printing a trillion, making the little money I have worth less and committing all of us for generations to pay and pay and pay.
#14 – we’re in agreement! (OMG!)
So why shovel $700 billion more into the hole?
But wait, there’s more!
http://www.rollcall.com/news/28599-1.html?type=printer_friendly
White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto (…) insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.
So, this has been in draft for quite a while and it’s just so convenient to time it just before congress is scheduled to go into recess, and claim it must be done right now, with no revision or provision to oversight. Give. Me. A. Break.
#11 Calin: Good try. Except, of course, you misrepresented some things including the actual date of the statement (9/2003) and had no source link ( http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2 ). If memory serves, Republicans were pretty much in control of Congress in 2003… But suddenly in an alternate revisionist history reality Repubs are and were now the party of regulation, oversight and anti-lobby, huh?
This 2003 measure was intended to transfer the oversight of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mac from Congress to a new agency in the Treasury Dept… who is under the executive. So essentially it was a move to put control of that under the executive instead of legislative, not necessarily to regulate it. I’m sure that would have been better, right? If you believe that, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell you.
> I have a bridge in Alaska to sell you.
Thanks. But, no thanks.
Their going to raise $700 billion by selling U.S. treasury bonds. So who has the $700 billion to buy these bonds?
I think that voting republican will collapse the system less fast. Neither knows how the economy works. Today Bernanke actually said the market is not working. This is the problem, the dems and reps have been listening to people who think the system won’t work on it’s own and they are the ones to help it work; right.
I like the firefighter congress commercial where all of congress is a firefighter and they all vote yea for common sense stuff. I’d like to ask the question in front of that common sense group, “Does anyone think that businesses that don’t make money should continue to operate?” Answer, No. “So, should we bail them out anyway?” Answer, no.
Duh.
Don’t know if anyone has noticed that it’s been about every 7 to 10 years we have a crisis and the price tag keeps going up.
I agree with all the above!!!
> I have a bridge in Alaska to sell you.
#18: Thanks. But, no thanks.
So, in Palinland, that means I get to keep your money and no need to deliver anything, huh? Awesome! Please send $400M to gimmeabreak@ihateyougus.net. Thanks!
Since for some reason I can’t see any of the 22 other comments I’ll say what has to have been posted already.
That can’t possibly be constitutionally valid.
The proposal is Secretary Henry Paulson’s, not Bush’s.
If it was Bush’s, congress would never have been asked their opinion of it.
“Could Congress be any more impotent?”
No need to worry. The dems won’t send any bill through that would hurt the American peoples.
They are the fiscal watchdogs.
The problem can best be summed up by Barney Frank’s response to Greg Mankiw, chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, in 2003, “because he is worried about the tiny little matter of safety and soundness rather than ‘concern about housing.'”
NONE of these people give a crap about the consequences of their actions because they run the printing presses and have a fat, guaranteed pension when they’re done doing stupid shit to the taxpayer. When they make financial policy, they generate these problems, then they get on a soapbox and pontificate when their policies run the taxpayer off a cliff. They get all in a panic and write legislation so “this can never happen again,” like the Patriot Act, and the cycle repeats itself.
Now, just watch all those Democrats, after telling you to vote for them so they could “clean up after the Bush administration,” get down on their knees and lick this crap up with a smile.
The ONLY solution is to take away the power from them by not giving them the authority and the money to do these things. When will all you partisans figure out that it’s the politician, not the party from which they come, that is the problem? No, I’ll just get crap from both sides about how “It’s the Democrats/Republicans fault!” Jeeeesh …
At least I do recall Chairman Greenspan, of the Fed, warning people back in the late 90’s about “irrational exuberance”, which some of us heeded in spite of all of the “it’s a new economy out there” dot-com jargon. Why didn’t we hear some of this dire language from Bernanke and Paulson prior to this ‘sudden’ meltdown in the credit markets? Aren’t these people supposed to be the watchdogs? How can the market, supposedly containing some people with brains and foresight, do a better job of sniffing this out long before it happens? I know there were some voices out there warning us, but it didn’t seem to be coming from the top.
#26, we had a Constitution a long time ago that attempted to limit the power of the government, and the politicians who run it. It was largely discarded over a century ago.
#28 – I would only agree inasmuch as that many of the principles thus embodied have been abandoned, but the law still stands. I don’t know if your handle means you are an actual lawyer, so you may no more than I. Bottom line though, is that we have to actually vote for people who take the Constitution seriously. Yes, easier said than done, but that’s the way I vote. That’s the way I campaigned when I ran for CA State Assembly. I managed to get a little over 3200 votes, so somebody is paying attention.
Voting for “change” and other pablum, however, gets us more of the same.
This is insanity. Bush is treating 3/4 of a trillion dollars as if it was petty cash.
No… petty cash has MORE restrictions.