Deja Vu From Mitch McConnell on Finance Reform: Let's Go Back to the Drawing Board
Steve Benen got this one exactly right. As he noted after Mitch McConnell flew off to have a closed door meeting with the Wall Street elites and Candy Crowley asked him what was said at those meetings "the conservative Kentuckian was evasive -- imagine that -- and instead of answering the questions, he talked about scrapping the legislation altogether".Everyone knows that McConnell is crazy and hates America. He has spent his entire Senate career trying to sabotage good government that works for the people. Look at his voting record there is not a special interest that has not lined McConnell's pockets with cash. The poor guy is an addict. He's addicted to the sound of his own voice and cold hard cash. Sen. Corker Refutes Right-Wing Talking Point: The Resolution Fund Is ‘Anything But A Bailout’
It's like deja vu all over again -- Democrats tackle a pressing national issue, negotiate with Republicans in good faith, craft a reasonable, middle-of-the-road legislative package that deserves bipartisan support, lobbyists tell Republicans to kill it, and McConnell voices his support for killing the legislation and going "back to the drawing board."
Is it me or does this sound familiar?
No, it's not just you Steve. He's exactly right. The Democrats can scrap the liquidation fund the Republicans are carping about and the Republicans will still find another reason not to support it. They are not negotiating in good faith and no one should take them seriously if they pretend they are. Hell, McConnell couldn't even bother to wipe the smirk off of his face during this interview.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took to the Senate floor today to repeat the false assertion that the pending financial reform bill will lead to further taxpayer-funded bailouts. A number of other Republicans — including House Minority Leader John Boehner — have repeated the false right-wing talking point.McConnell(R-Ky) and John Boehner (r-OH) are both wrong about financial reform. If anything the currrent financial reform/Wall St reform bill is too weak. Americans should be writing the America haters like McConnell and Boehner and tell them we need stronger regulation, not the weak regulation Republicans and their fat cat Wall St friends want.
The language originates from the advice of pollster Frank Luntz, who has urged Republicans to frame the final product as filled with bank bailouts. Republicans have thus asserted that the proposed resolution fund, negotiated by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Mark Warner (D-VA), amounts to a “50 billion dollar bailout fund.” The resolution authority, of course, has the opposite purpose: It is designed to eliminate too-big-to-fail institutions, not prop them up. It would raise $50 billion “from the largest financial firms” to provide for the orderly unraveling of big, systemically important institutions in the event it is needed — without forcing taxpayers to cover the losses.
Today on the Senate floor, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) debunked his conservative colleagues’ talking point, saying that the fund “is anything but a bailout”:
CORKER: But this fund that’s been set up is anything but a bailout. It’s been set up to, in essence, provide upfront funding by the industry so that when these companies are seized, there’s money available to make payroll and to wind it down while the pieces are being sold off. Now, a lot of people have said this is a Republican idea. There’s no question that this is something Sheila Bair has proposed. The fdic wants to see a prefund. The treasury would like to see a postfund.
Watch it:
Corker explained that all serious debate over the resolution fund concerns whether to “pre-raise” the money in anticipation of a bank failure, or to require the financial industry to fund resolution after an institution has crashed. Corker called the rhetoric “silly,” pointing out that “either way, you’ve got to have the monies available to shut the firms down” without endangering the entire financial system.
McConnell has also sought to bring the Obama administration into his argument, saying yesterday on CNN’s State of the Union that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich agreed with him that the fund would lead to future “taxpayer funded bailouts.” Reich quickly rebuked McConnell for mischaracterizing his position, writing that “When Mitch McConnell has to misquote me to find evidence he’s telling the truth, he is desperate.”
In any case, McConnell’s qualms about the resolution fund seem little more than a political stunt. TPM reports that even after the Obama administration signaled that it was willing to ditch the offending provision, the Republican leader has remained uncritically opposed to the bill. Echoing his rhetoric during the health care debate, McConnell told CNN’s Candy Crowley yesterday that “[w]e ought to go back to the drawing board.”
Stossel Adds to Fox's Ethics Problem
Today, Media Matters for America reported that a fundraising event keynoted by Fox Business host John Stossel is scheduled to go forward as planned, despite the ethical fallout from Sean Hannity's recent Cincinnati Tea Party scandal. Stossel's planned appearance has been criticized by several business news veterans.Fox and by extension John Crazy Man Stossel are simply rabid right-wing propagandists for the party of elitest - Republicans
"Fox has a chronic ethics problem," said Media Matters President Eric Burns. "And seeing as John Stossel's fundraiser comes after the network promised to rein in their employees, it doesn't seem like a problem they're too interested in solving."
