Walt Minnick has the most reactionary voting record of any of the Democratic freshmen elected last November. He’s voted more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats and the leadership just lets him slide because his district is so hopelessly red– the home of the Aryan Nations and America’s biggest concentration of neo-Nazis and domestic terrorists (Obama barely managed a third of the vote last November). Minnick has been very careful to tow a very right-wing line when it comes to voting, so right-wing in fact that the GOP’s #1 recruitment target, state Treasurer Ron Crane, has just announced he won’t challenge him. The district likes Minnick; he’s proven that despite the Democratic Party affiliation, he’s just like they are– against anything remotely progressive and very much a part of what author Charles Pierce has dubbed Idiot America.
But all Minnick’s hard working in proving that he isn’t really a Democrat could come crashing down next week if Rahm Emanuel forces him to vote for the 2009 Supplemental Budget. True, continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are popular in ID-01 and the rest of Idiot America and, in fact, Minnick already voted "yes" on May 14th, along with 200 Democrats and all but 9 rebellious Republicans (like Ron Paul). The vote was in sync with his constituents, just as the yes votes from the two reactionary Democratic freshmen from Alabama, Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith– politically very much the same as Minnick– were also in sync with their constituents’ Hate Talk radio-fueled wishes.
But once Emanuel– in effect the Karl Rove of the current administration– saw the huge margin by which the Supplemental passed (368-60), he decided to lard it up with something the virtually no Americans who aren’t getting million dollar campaign contributions from the banksters would ever countenance. The Senate sent the bill back to the House with an IMF amendment attached, an amendment that guarantees $108 billion in taxpayer money– in this economy when states from California to Alabama are cutting back on basic and crucial services– to bail out European banks. Any Blue Dog– supposedly fiscally responsible Democrats– who votes for this garbage legislation will deserve to be beaten next year. According to John Boehner and Eric Cantor, the 168 Republicans who voted for the Supplemental on May 14 have now decided to oppose it.
Their announced opposition is what caused Emanuel’s congressional henchman, Steny Hoyer, to pull the bill off the floor Friday and postpone the vote. Suddenly Emanuel and the rest of the Bankster Bailout Bunch realized that with progressive Democrats against the Supplemental because of the wars, the GOP opposition would kill it. So Emanuel and the BBB are cracking the whip, demanding Democrats toe the line– offering bribes and threats. Does Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS) really want that $100,000 earmark for the West Point Historic Post Office in West Point, Mississippi? If he votes "no" on the European bank bailout his $100 K may get lost in the shuffle. We’re hearing reports that Emanuel is behaving like a mad dog again.
And, worse yet, the waste of taxpayer money is unlikey to even do any good– and could actually make the recession worse. Economist Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, has made the point that American taxpayers have been getting increasingly restive about these mega-bailouts ever since the Bush Regime rewarded incompetence and self indulgence from the too-big-to-fail banks last September with a $700 billion dollar blank check. And now Obama wants to put another $108 billion down that sink hole?
What is all this money for?… It seems that Europe’s banks have gotten into a mess in their own neighborhood that is comparable to the “troubled assets” that our financial institutions accumulated in the course of the housing bubble– which they also shared. These banks had a fit of irrational exuberance in Central and Eastern Europe in recent years, with the result that they now have at least $1.4 trillion– and that is a conservative estimate– in exposure there to loans that are certain to have a very high default rate.
The Obama administration has argued that the money is necessary to help provide a global stimulus, and to help poor people in poor countries. But the facts do not support this claim. Almost all of the agreements that the IMF has concluded since the global economic crisis began have included the opposite of stimulus programs: for example spending cuts or interest rate increases. The amount of money that will help poor countries is tiny. And it is difficult to see why the IMF would need hundreds of billions of dollars to help governments with balance of payments support: for sixteen Standby Arrangements negotiated since the crisis intensified last year, the total has been less than $46 billion.
On the other hand, European banks are facing potential losses in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Some, like France’s Societe Generale, have already gotten billions of dollars from the TARP bailout. If the purpose of adding these vast sums to the IMF’s coffers is to bail out these banks, then the taxpayers of the United States (and other countries who are being asked to contribute) ought to know about it.
George Miller and Barney Frank, two members of the Democratic leadership, have already been reeled back in and are going to vote "yes." On the other hand, Jim Moran and several other Democrats who originally backed the Supplemental have no intention of voting for another $100 billion bankster bailout. In the original vote, 3 Blue Dogs joined the progressives in voting "no," Jim Cooper (TN), Mike Michaud (ME) and Mike Thompson (CA). This week Emanuel will use all the… skill he possesses– does Jan Schakowsky really want to run for the U.S. Senate? for example– in forcing the "no" votes to switch to "yes" and in holding the "yes" votes. It’s hard to imagine that hard core anti-bailout Blue Dogs like Minnick, Bright, and Griffith will ever put themselves in such grave jeopardy by voting for something so hated in their districts. Other conservative Democrats who will be pilloried by Republicans if they vote for the bailout include Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Gabby Giffords (AZ), Glenn Nye (VA), Frank Kratovil (MD), Suzanne Kosmas (FL), Kathleen Dahlkemper (PA), Travis Childers (MS), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Jason Altmire (PA), Heath Shuler (NC), Chris Carney (PA), Dan Boren (OK), Gene Taylor (MS), Zack Space (OH), Bill Foster (IL), Mike McIntyre (NC), Charlie Melancon (LA), Joe Donnelly (IN), Melissa Bean (IL), Allen Boyd (FL), John Barrow (GA), Baron Hill (IN), and Jim Marshall (GA).
The Firedoglake action tool includes phone numbers of Congressmen who are keeping track of what their constituents have to say about the issues in this Frankenstein bill. If your member isn’t on the list, just call 202-224-3121 and tell them where you live and they’ll connect you with your Representative. Monday and Tuesday are the days this battle can be won.
Related posts:
- Red State Targets Blue Dogs Who Vote for IMF Bailout
- Speak Out: Write Letters To Your Local Papers and Urge Members of Congress to Vote “No” On Supplemental
- Rahm Cutting Deals To “Go Easy” On Republicans in 2010 Who Vote For Supplemental?
- Ann Kirkpatrick Leaning “No” — Rahm Losing Blue Dogs On Supplemental?
- Supplemental: Why Must Progressive Members of Congress Grovel For the Blue Dogs?
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Not only should they vote NO, but hell NO!
What lobby benefits from this giveaway?
for your fund of genral knowledge howie …
that’s “toe-the-line” .. not “tow-the-line” ..
it comes from an old naval expression wherein the deck crew were told to line up along a seam.. [crack].. in the deckboards …
Even if there is a deep ‘good’ reason for this, Emanuel’s ‘corporate’ perspective is the faction of the Democratic ‘big tent’ that needs to be watched carefully. Though, as Liberals, the opinions of this faction should not be ignored, a little ‘protectionism’ is in line.
and this ’stinks’
the imf has been, and i assume still is, practically run out of the usa treasury (with the only veto).
the idea of giving geithner any more $$$ to play with is imo nuts.
that said i do think we have an obligation to help destitute people in poor countries that have been hurt by our policies — but the idea that geithner has any concern about that is just laughable. what concern has he shown for people in need here or anywhere else?
…..
and i’m pretty sure that bombing more people isn’t a good idea either. no more fucking war!!!
…..
on the other hand a supplemental for closing gitmo and all the black sites is a supplemental i could support. mcgovern’s admendment to tell the pentagon to make a plan for withdrawal from afghanistan would be nice too.
but those are apparently not on the table. :(
$108 billion of non-partisan money in exchange for ideological purity in the Dem caucus? I sense a storm of bi-partisan outrage brewing…
I think I am going to be sick. “Emanuel”: what a misnomer.
That $108 billion would do a lot of good here in the USA by expanding the first-time home buyer tax credit to $15,000, as originally proposed, and a $10,000 for non-first time home buyers provided, however, that the homes are owner occupied as primary residences for 24 months.
We have a lot of suddenly much poorer and out-of-work people right here in America. The economic stimulus has worked modestly well, but states like California and Florida, which are drowning in red ink and whose economies show no prospect of turning around any time soon. If you stabilize the real estate market, you also stabilize bank balance sheets, and that enables banks to resume more normal patterns of lending to those that are credit worthy, and those borrowers put that money to some economically productive use that, in most cases, tends to have a positive impact on employment, which in turn tends to have a positive impact on consumption, and consumption has a positive effect on the American and, thus, the global economy.
No good hearted American is against making loans or capital contributions to central banks/governments in poorer countries. But if that’s the case, then any add-on to the Supplemental should be strictly limited to achieve that goal. As far as lending money to capital-poor European banks, as Angela Merkel said “Let them eat cake.” I’m sorry. I guess that was Marie Antoinette, but it might as well as have been Merkel. The European banks can ask for help from their central governments, or their central governments can enact economic stimulus packages along the lines of those passed by China and America. And if their governments don’t want to save them, then that’s just their tough luck. Capitalism happens! Not often enough, but here and there capitalism does happen.
You want a talking point? This is a provision that will expand the socialization of losses beyond American shores. We encourage many erstwhile American corporations to move jobs overseas and permit mail box drops in Bermuda and the Bahamas to serve as the means for avoiding state and federal corporate income taxes, but no that isn’t enough for the mighty US Senate. We need to bail out European banks because we want to encourage their incompetence? Or is it to further a corporate system that fails American workers, in addition to the US Treasury, year after year? Or is it because the US Senate is completely captured by the interests of the global financial economy and haven’t the balls to say no to their corporate soul mates.
They can say no to a sensible and affordable real estate tax credit of $15,000, so that a couple of economically clueless Senators from Maine can say they exercised their influence to make the economic stimulus bill more fiscally responsible. But in so doing they run the risk that states like California and Florida essentially descend into chaos. They should both be working for Angela Merkel to wreck the European economy, if only we were so lucky.
Screw the IMF and their plan to bail out European banks. Let the European countries do it, particularly those that aren’t fighting two wars to the tune of trillions borrowed on the backs of future generations of Americans for their benefit as much as ours.
We need to commit our resources to fixing our economy. The global effect of a healthy American economy will be far greater than $108 billion, and if the European banks can’t hold out, then I’m sure an American or Canadian or Chinese or Japanese or Middle eastern bank or consortium will be happy to buy them out at the right price.
Capitalism happens, Europe! Deal with it!
Sorry to appear as a contrarian but I think the IMF funding is a good thing, yeah we’re broke but sending ‘pocket change’ to the IMF makes us as a country appear less aggressive & a bit more agreeable. While most would agree that $5b isn’t exactly ‘petty cash’, compared to what’s been already pissed away starting 2001, yes, $5b is. & I HATE the Joe Lieberman anti-FOIA amendment as well, if he’s a ‘democrat’ then I’m Phil Lynott, a genius who is long dead. Dammit. – darms