Al Franken laid out his concerns and requirements for the proposed bailout package last week and in its current form, Franken said today that he would oppose the bill. He’s sticking to his word:
Last night the United States Senate voted to take $700 billion from taxpayers who did nothing wrong and offer it as a sacrifice at the altar of financial mismanagement. This bill doesn’t fix an economy that isn’t working for middle class families. This bill doesn’t even fix the damage that’s been done in the last eight years. It is, in fact, the exclamation point on eight years of the worst stewardship of our economy since Herbert Hoover. A terrible end to a terrible presidency. And if we don’t face up to what’s gone wrong – if, at this sad moment in our history, we fail to recognize what is still wrong with our economy and take concrete steps to fix it – then this will not be the last time Minnesota taxpayers are asked to clean up someone else’s mess.
This isn’t a big surprise. If a plan were to be worked out that would actually fix the problem including having real oversight (instead of just oversight on how the money is spent), didn’t have all the loopholes for “golden parachutes,” and doing more to help consumers and homeowners, Franken would have been for it. In a speech today, Franken compared by saying “”we were trying to drain a basement that is filled with water and it’s raining out and we have a roof with a huge hole in it. We’re draining the basement without fixing the roof.” Franken’s also did not blame Coleman (or Klobuchar, for that matter) for voting for it, saying it was a very difficult decision, but did blame Coleman for supporting the no-regulation philosophy of the Bush administration that was likely the largest factor in creating this mess.
Meanwhile, Coleman ended up saying that the bill in its previous form was “not acceptable.” Strange. Just last week he said “we have our quarterbacks in there — Henry Paulson and Bernanke — and they’re calling the play. And we have to run the play.” DFL Chair Brian Melendez said:
Senator Coleman has been caught in yet another lie. A day after he voted to approve $700 billion in taxpayer money to clean up the mess that he and his sponsors helped make on Wall Street, Norm Coleman is claiming that he opposed the original proposal, though his statements in the past week show instead that he supported it.
The truth is that Senator Coleman supported George W. Bush every step of the way in the bailout, just as he has for the last six years. Norm Coleman still doesn’t get it: the Bush administration’s failed economic policies caused this crisis. And Coleman’s lock-step support of those policies has Minnesotans ready to fire him. I see why he wants to distance himself from his record, but the facts speak for themselves.
I may disagree with Melendez here. Melendez says that Coleman’s lying, I think Coleman doesn’t actually know what he’s talking about. Either way, Coleman screwed up his talking points.
Franken has been showing some real leadership these last couple weeks while Coleman continues to prove over and over again that he doesn’t really know what’s up.
More on Franken and the bailout at his blog.
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I need to learn not to be surprised by you guys anymore, 74 members of the US Senate voted for this bill, including a DEMOCRAT that Minnesotans elected and your presidential candidate. I think it is safe to say that Senator Klobuchar will not be one of the surrogates out on the stump for Angry Al?
Klobuchar has repeatedly stupmed for Franken and I am sure will continue. Listen GOPGAL, we are not like the Rethuglicans who shun you if you disagree on a vote, and actually vote your principles. I know you Republicans like to just put in faceless representatives of the party, and that is fine for you folks. Party comes before principles of course for you guys. Franken will be fine and embraced.
Thanks, Alec
Franken had no choice. Coleman supported it and Franken’s campaign is so tied to everything Norm has ever done being wrong that to not oppose it would be admitting that Coleman did the right thing.
Franken opposed it because he is running for office in 2008. Frankly, I am surprised Coleman voted for it for the same reason.
It is of course easy to be against an unpopular bill when you don’t have to vote on it. That aside it is nice to see Franken being against it even if it for all the wrong reasons.
Easy credit at all levels created the housing bubble. Housing prices and real wages have traditionally gone up and down together. If housing prices increase more than real wages it is a bubble. The housing bubble that started in the mid nineties that is now starting to deflate is the biggest in history.
There are two ways for housing prices to come back in line with wages, something that WILL happen no matter what politicians tell you to get elected. One is we let the value of homes return to the level they would have been had they increased at the same rate as wages, about 50% of their current value. The other is that we create inflation that reduces the buying power of wages to half their current amount while home prices stay static.
The problem with the second option, which is represented by the bailout, is that inflation hurts everyone whether they took the risk of borrowing to buy a house or not. It also hurts those who have less ability to absorb financial distress much more than those that are well off.
Propping up home prices is a very, very, very bad idea. The property does not have the value to back the loans associated with them. Pretending otherwise by moving the bad debt from the individuals who live in the property to the general public does not change that.
It is a terrible bill with necessary components and lots of stuff missing. I don’t support it either, but I understand the necessity of it. Democrats aren’t as mendaciously rigid as republicans, GOPgal.
I do agree with one thing. It is easier to oppose a bill when you don’t have to vote on it. I probably would have voted yes on the damn thing.
KH,
Conservatives had to push easy credit because there was no other way to get money into the economy after years of supply side economics had crippled wages and benefits. Consider why we had to make credit so easy just to keep the economy rolling and spending going.
So, if you want to look at the root cause, it is supply side economics that redistributed all the wealth to a very, very few. With wages stagnating after Regan and his disciples destroyed the labor movement and unions, there was nothing for the conservatives to do except open up the credit spigot. This whole bail out bill is designed to keep the credit spigot open so our economy keeps going.
Ask yourself, why does the average American worker have to go into such terrible debt for teh very basics of the American dream?
Supply side economics is dead. Good riddance to fascism.
Thanks, Alec
Alec, it’s amazing that the very party that claimed “competition is the answer!” did everything in their power to ensure mergers and acquisitons were accomplished.
“Good riddance” indeed.