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September 26, 2008
Some Notes On Yesterday's $700 Billion Bailout Meeting
White House meeting ends on sour note
A high-profile White House meeting on Treasury’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan ended Thursday on a sour, contentious note, with no joint endorsement by the two presidential candidates, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama.
Democrats complained of being “blindsided” by a new conservative alternative to the plan first put forward by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. And the outcome casts doubt on the ability of Congress to move quickly on the matter, even after leaders of House and Senate banking committees reached a bipartisan agreement Thursday on the framework for legislation authorizing the massive government intervention.
It was McCain who urged President Bush to call the White House meeting attended by House and Senate leaders as well as Obama, his Democratic rival.
But the candidates left without commenting to reporters outside, and the whole sequence of events confirmed Treasury’s fears about inserting presidential politics into what were already difficult negotiations.
Frank, a strong Paulson ally, feels the secretary is being undercut in front of the president.“McCain and the House Republicans are undercutting the Paulson plan, talking about a wholly different approach,” Frank said prior to the meeting. And this was very much the line of attack at the White House: “This is the presidential campaign of John McCain undermining what Hank Paulson tells us is essential for the country.”
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee and one of the authors of the conservative alternative, said that McCain had yet to sign onto the proposal. But Ryan confirmed that he and other House Republicans had met with the Arizona senator on the issue prior to the White House meeting in the offices of House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
“Our goal is not to derail. Our goal is to break the logjam. It’s a Plan B if Paulson can’t pass,” Ryan said. “This is such a crisis I’m not going to draw some line in the sand. We can’t leave without doing something, but we don’t think the votes are here for Paulson.”
Prior to the White House meeting, Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) predicted legislation could be finalized in time for Congress to act this weekend. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who continued to represent Senate Republicans Thursday night and has close ties to the White House, conceded that portions of the package won’t be to Treasury’s liking, but the agreement was a step forward.
Senator Richard Shelby told reporters outside the White House that he did not believe there was an agreement and that the proposals by US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson constituted a "bad plan".
"It will not solve problems, it will create more problems, we're rushing to judgment, that we do have stress in our market, but this is not the best way, we ought to look at alternatives," Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, said after emerging from a meeting at the White House with President Bush, congressional leaders and the presidential candidates.
from Dodd, Dow Jones Newswire:
“Meeting was contentious”
“Nothing more than a rescue plan for John McCain”
“Paulson needs to choose who’s side he’s on”
“I won’t be going back to the White House”
Chris Dodd being interviewed by Wolfie Blitzed. Dodd was NOT HAPPY. Said the Pubs had some different "principles" than what "we"--the Dims--had agreed upon.
Sen. Dodd throws gasoline on fire
As a member and later chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd shoulders a good deal of the blame for the collapse of the national housing market, the subprime-mortgage-market meltdown and the latest convulsions on Wall Street.
Reams of legislation he has written or advocated affecting the housing, lending, insurance and securities industries have drained hundreds of billions out of the economy, ballooned the federal debt, cost tens of thousands of people their jobs and driven hundreds of thousands of homeowners into foreclosure, bankruptcy or both. For his efforts, Sen. Dodd has been rewarded in the 2008 election cycle with $7.65 million in campaign contributions — he took in $11.7 million in all — from the securities, insurance, real-estate and commercial-banking industries, according to his latest Federal Election Commission filing posted at opensecrets.org.
Sen. Dodd's list of donors reads like a who's who of who's in the stew: Citigroup, $310,294; SAC Capital Partners, $282,000; United Technologies, $263,400; AIG, $224,678; Bear Stearns, $205,600; St. Paul Travelers, $205,400; Royal Bank of Scotland, $203,750; Goldman Sachs, $175,600; Morgan Stanley, $155,000; Credit Suisse, $154,550; Merrill Lynch, $134,950; JPMorgan Chase, $129,150; Lehman Brothers, $128,400; KPMG, $113,100; General Electric, $108,250; Deloitte Touche, $108,000; USB, $101,900; Hartford Finance Services, $101,500; The Hartford, $94,350; Bank of America, $91,300.
With $165,400, Sen. Dodd also tops the list of members of Congress who took campaign cash from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since 1989. Sen. Barack Obama, the self-styled agent of change, is a distant second at $126,000 and Sen. John Kerry is third at $111,000. In the top 20 are Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Long after the horses had left the barn, Sen. Dodd now pledges to "continue to work on solutions to help Americans weather this storm, including strengthening the housing sector, developing a second stimulus package and restructuring the regulation of the financial sector."
To which we say: Haven't you done enough damage?
Posted by Wild Thing at September 26, 2008 04:48 AM
Comments
Senator Dodd may be the top seed in a long list of people responsible for this mortgage crisis. It looks like he will continue to be a star player in preventing the mess from being fixed. Dodd is so typical of the know it all, me first career politicians in Washington DC. He is one of the poster children for term limits.
Posted by: TomR at September 26, 2008 11:50 AM
Dodd's CYA plan has hit a snag, it's another Democrat power grab and he is at the heart of it. Let the whole mess go down maybe, we'll see another IL Duche rightfully strung up in Connecticut.
Posted by: Jack at September 26, 2008 02:18 PM
Tom, yes Dodd is right in the top rung of those responsible.
I like how you said that about his being one of the poster children for term limits.
Posted by: Wild Thing at September 26, 2008 06:55 PM
Jack, oh I wish so much it would go down and let the conservative Republicans write up the deal and I do trust them to do what is right for our country. But my gut says the end will show we will not be happy about this when it is done.
Posted by: Wild Thing at September 26, 2008 06:57 PM
