Rep. Bobby Scott, (D) Va.
As America hurtles towards Depression 2.0, the talking heads, and politicians we’ve seen thus far have largely been white. Tuesday night, the day after the big meltdown the PBS News Hour had a black congressman who voted against the bailout package, and articulately explained his reasons for doing so.
That Congressman, Rep. Bobby Scott (D), Virginia gave the most brilliant analysis of the problem and offered several remedies that would no burden US taxpayers with the $700 Billion package being shoved down our throat by the Bush Treasury Secretary. Part of his comments can be seen below. For more, click here
REP. BOBBY SCOTT (D), Virginia: Well, I think it would be helpful just to get away from the theater and who’s winning and who’s losing and get to the point that Pete just made.
The bill authorized the secretary of the Treasury to buy $700 billion worth of assets at who knows what price and who gets to unload worthless, exotic derivatives and options on the government?
A better plan is, as Sen. McCain pointed out, the administration has the authority to buy worthful mortgage-backed securities, those that have value. There’s no point in spending all this money on worthless assets.
What we can do to deal with the credit crisis — as the group you cited earlier today, under Pete DeFazio’s leadership, can do administrative things, accounting, like the mark-to-market, which would expand the amount of lending capacity, the FDIC adjustment, which would relieve the pressure on people pulling their money out, and the net worth certificates, which have been used in the past, which would give banks confidence in lending money to other banks.
We could deal with homeowners, struggling homeowners, with the Home Ownership Loan Corporation that we did in the Great Depression, which, when the dust settled, we protected all the mortgages, prevented foreclosures, and ended up making a profit.
There are a lot of things we can do at virtually no cost to the taxpayer. And why we would start off with a $700 billion purchase of worthless assets is — I think was just a step in the wrong direction.
We ought not get lost in who’s winning, who’s losing, whose fault it was. But I think if we slow down and deliberate and think this thing through, we can come up with a much better product.
