This is DISGUSTING! Pathetic! Now the lobbyists are up there influencing Congress to get their way with this bill. We need this legislation NOW!! This is about our economic survival. Democrats are delaying this and it continues to make things WORSE. The President has asked for a "clean" bill----one NOT loaded up with freebies for lobbyists----and this is what our Congress and Senate give him: kowtowing to lobbyists and letting THEM hold things up....ALL for political points. IF these elected officials aren't smart enough to figure it out on their own, then they don't deserve their job!!

"Lobbyists seek change to language
By Jim Snyder

Posted: 09/22/08 08:03 PM [ET]
Lobbying on the rescue plan for Wall Street intensified Monday as the package moved to Congress, giving advocates another avenue to alter the language in ways favorable to their clients.


Up to now, the actions to stem the financial calamity on Wall Street have been carried out by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, with little involvement from Capitol Hill.


But the $700 billion plan to purchase bad debt from financial institutions and unclog credit markets requires Congress to act. The Bush administration urged lawmakers to pass a clean bill, but now there are more viewpoints that have to be considered.


Some Democrats already indicated the package may not pass until next week — news that sent stock prices tumbling and stressed some business lobbyists.


“If we don’t move quickly, we could be in the soup,” said Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce."

“We cannot support, and urge you to oppose, legislation that fails to help the millions of families in danger of losing their homes, while spending hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to bail out those who caused the problem,” groups like the NAACP, National Fair Housing Alliance, and the Service Employees International Union wrote lawmakers on Monday.


Under the bankruptcy protection provision in Dodd’s bill, bankruptcy judges could lower the value of the loan to help homeowners meet their payments.

Banking lobbyists said once Treasury takes control of securities it will have the power to change the terms of the underlying mortgages. But that shifts the financial costs of reducing the price of the loans to the taxpayer rather than the shareholders in the bank that made the bad loans in the first place."

“Any taxpayer bailout of Wall Street must be balanced with economic relief for ordinary Americans dealing with the economic consequences of Wall Street’s outrageous conduct and the government’s own inaction,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told congressional Democrats in a letter."

http://thehill.com/business--lobby/l...8-09-22_2.html

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"What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama said mockingly of the New York senator. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

So JP, I will ask you the same question that I asked another in a previous thread. Do you agree with section 8 of the proposal submitted by Secretary Paulson ??

As for your assertion that the President wants a "clean" bill with no freebies for lobbyists, let me ask you, does the origninal proposed bill submitted by Secretary Paulson benefit anyone specifically ?? Maybe the businesses who will be rescued ?? What exactly did Secretary Paulson's original bill do to protect you and me from having this money spent frivously ?? Would it not benefit the banks and other financial institutions if this money was spent frivilously ?? Would that not leave us, the taxpayer, footing the bill for there irresponsibility ?? I find it very telling that the major bank lobbys are the ones yelling the loudest in the article you linked.

I would say thank you to both the Donkeys and Elephants who have said, stop...take a breath...what exactly are we getting ourselves into here ??

-traveler-

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"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."

-Nada-

The last time Bush said, "Hurry up, do it now. Trust me" hundreds of thousands of people died. Two weeks ago he said that economy was in great shape. I'd rather not hand 700 billion over to a madman. I'd rather wait, thank you very much. And right you are traveler, it's both sides of the isle.

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You, you, and you, panic. The rest of you follow me.

Last book read: "The Gate House" ~ NelsonDeMille
Now reading: "Nam-A-Rama" ~ Phillip Jennings

1. In a free market capitalist economy, everyone must be allowed to prosper or fail freely, without entangling the government in any way whatever.

2. What we've seen Bernanke and Paulson attempt is nothing less than an attempt to launch an illegal takeover of the entire U. S. economy. Neither of these people has ever been elected to anything by the people of the United States, but they have close ties to hedge funds and private international equity corporations that go back many years. There is great similarity between these two especially, and it's amazing that noone seems to notice it.

3. If what is needed so badly is capital, the simplest, legal way to bring it in volume is to raise interest rates! Individuals and corporations alike typically have a great deal of cash sitting on the sidelines and they'd be happy to put the money into financial institutions but for the fact that the return on investment is so pitifully low at the wretched interest rates dictated by Bernanke.

4. In a greater sense, we need to return to the gold standard -- i. e., REAL value and wealth. People who live on credit cards and who have to borrow money to support their lavish lifestyles are morons and drags on any economy. We should allow them to flush themselves out with the rest of the sh*t and get on toward a new, prosperous future with real money in the bank, and with people making decisions who have triple-digit IQ's.