David Hawpe: "A Nation Of Whiners?"
No whining, please … bailouts only for big givers
Coddling Wall Street is nothing new for Mitch McConnell.
In 1999, McConnell and the rest of the Kentucky congressional delegation voted to deregulate Wall Street banking and investments. They -- and most of other members of Congress -- ignored the warnings that this hands-off approach could create financial institutions so big the federal government simply could not afford to let them fail.
Well, those warnings were well-founded. Wall Street is on its knees, and it's in everyone's interest for Big Government to drag the financial system back to its feet. But the question is, why a helping hand only for Wall Street? Why no help for ordinary people who find themselves in financial trouble and in danger of losing their homes?
Follow the money. The campaign money.
The Center for Responsive Politics calculated last year that the credit card and commercial banking industries had given $224 million to candidates in federal races and to the major political parties: 62 percent to Republicans and 38 percent to Democrats.
The same group noted that McConnell had collected more than $4.3 million in donations from the financial sector in the last two decades.
The Lexington Herald-Leader pointed out that McConnell "has been individually feted in New York city by major banks, including a 2005 luncheon given in his honor by UBS and Citigroup, which raised at least $60,000 for his campaign fund. Former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, who sponsored the Wall Street deregulation bill and then left Congress to become an investment banker at UBS, helped organize that event and donated $4,000 to McConnell."
You remember Gramm. He said we're just in a mental recession. We're a nation of whiners.
Last week, President Bush called a meeting to urge quick passage of a $700 billion financial industry bailout plan, and, as usual, his friend and enabler Mitch McConnell was close at hand, seated at the bailout table.
McConnell wanted fast action.
In a typically sardonic bit of rhetoric, McConnell warned the Senate, "When there's a fire in your kitchen threatening to burn down your home, you don't want someone stopping the firefighters on the way and demanding they hand out smoke detectors first or lecturing you about the hazards of keeping paint in the basement." He said, "We know that there is a serious threat to our economy, and we know that we must take action to try and head off a serious blow to Main Street."
Fair enough. But why no urgency to help hundreds of thousands of Americans who -- usually as a result of job loss, medical bills or divorce -- find themselves in bankruptcy?
It was McConnell who led the floor fight to pass the Bankruptcy Abuse Protection and Consumer Protection Act, another Bush priority, which has made it harder for Americans to get out of debt -- in part by imposing a means test that was designed and intended to shove more folks into Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
Earlier this year, it was McConnell who, as CNN described it, effectively killed "efforts to give bankruptcy courts more power to stave off home foreclosures."
Existing law allows bankruptcy courts to adjust the terms of mortgages for second homes and family farms. But under a proposal made by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., primary residences would get the same treatment, saving as many as 600,000 families from foreclosure.
Mitch McConnell stomped on that idea.
As Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said at the time, "The people on Wall Street are high-fiving. They just won again."
Bush was happy, too. He had warned that helping those in bankruptcy "would be unfair to the millions of homeowners who make the hard choices every month to pay their mortgage on time…."
As fierce negotiations over the $700 million financial industry bailout have continued, mortgage help for those in bankruptcy has been one of the most contentious issues. At last report, McConnell and other opponents had been able to keep such assistance out of the plan.
Wall Street would be high-fiving, but it has its hands full at the moment.
U.S. bankruptcy Judge Samuel Bufford said in The Wall Street Journal that helping those in bankruptcy is "a matter of fairness." He argued, "The government is providing a trillion dollars in assistance to financial institutions to deal with the problem that people can't pay mortgages, so there ought to be something in the program to help people pay their mortgages."
McConnell and his allies see it differently.
They see the need to free Wall Street from regulation, and to bail out the big guys when things go terribly wrong. But they see no need to help ordinary people who are in financial trouble -- those trapped in bankruptcy and faced with foreclosure because they've lost their jobs, medical bills have overwhelmed them or divorce has ruined their financial plans.
You just can't understand that kind of callousness?
Don't be a whiner. Follow the campaign money.
David Hawpe's columns appear Sundays and Wednesdays in the Community Forum. His e-mail address is dhawpe@courier-journal.com.
Editor's comment: While David Hawpe's piece may be on point, it unfairly targets Senator Mitch McConnell, where others also needed mentioning.
Coddling Wall Street is nothing new for Mitch McConnell.
In 1999, McConnell and the rest of the Kentucky congressional delegation voted to deregulate Wall Street banking and investments. They -- and most of other members of Congress -- ignored the warnings that this hands-off approach could create financial institutions so big the federal government simply could not afford to let them fail.
Well, those warnings were well-founded. Wall Street is on its knees, and it's in everyone's interest for Big Government to drag the financial system back to its feet. But the question is, why a helping hand only for Wall Street? Why no help for ordinary people who find themselves in financial trouble and in danger of losing their homes?
Follow the money. The campaign money.
The Center for Responsive Politics calculated last year that the credit card and commercial banking industries had given $224 million to candidates in federal races and to the major political parties: 62 percent to Republicans and 38 percent to Democrats.
The same group noted that McConnell had collected more than $4.3 million in donations from the financial sector in the last two decades.
The Lexington Herald-Leader pointed out that McConnell "has been individually feted in New York city by major banks, including a 2005 luncheon given in his honor by UBS and Citigroup, which raised at least $60,000 for his campaign fund. Former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, who sponsored the Wall Street deregulation bill and then left Congress to become an investment banker at UBS, helped organize that event and donated $4,000 to McConnell."
You remember Gramm. He said we're just in a mental recession. We're a nation of whiners.
Last week, President Bush called a meeting to urge quick passage of a $700 billion financial industry bailout plan, and, as usual, his friend and enabler Mitch McConnell was close at hand, seated at the bailout table.
McConnell wanted fast action.
In a typically sardonic bit of rhetoric, McConnell warned the Senate, "When there's a fire in your kitchen threatening to burn down your home, you don't want someone stopping the firefighters on the way and demanding they hand out smoke detectors first or lecturing you about the hazards of keeping paint in the basement." He said, "We know that there is a serious threat to our economy, and we know that we must take action to try and head off a serious blow to Main Street."
Fair enough. But why no urgency to help hundreds of thousands of Americans who -- usually as a result of job loss, medical bills or divorce -- find themselves in bankruptcy?
It was McConnell who led the floor fight to pass the Bankruptcy Abuse Protection and Consumer Protection Act, another Bush priority, which has made it harder for Americans to get out of debt -- in part by imposing a means test that was designed and intended to shove more folks into Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
Earlier this year, it was McConnell who, as CNN described it, effectively killed "efforts to give bankruptcy courts more power to stave off home foreclosures."
Existing law allows bankruptcy courts to adjust the terms of mortgages for second homes and family farms. But under a proposal made by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., primary residences would get the same treatment, saving as many as 600,000 families from foreclosure.
Mitch McConnell stomped on that idea.
As Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said at the time, "The people on Wall Street are high-fiving. They just won again."
Bush was happy, too. He had warned that helping those in bankruptcy "would be unfair to the millions of homeowners who make the hard choices every month to pay their mortgage on time…."
As fierce negotiations over the $700 million financial industry bailout have continued, mortgage help for those in bankruptcy has been one of the most contentious issues. At last report, McConnell and other opponents had been able to keep such assistance out of the plan.
Wall Street would be high-fiving, but it has its hands full at the moment.
U.S. bankruptcy Judge Samuel Bufford said in The Wall Street Journal that helping those in bankruptcy is "a matter of fairness." He argued, "The government is providing a trillion dollars in assistance to financial institutions to deal with the problem that people can't pay mortgages, so there ought to be something in the program to help people pay their mortgages."
McConnell and his allies see it differently.
They see the need to free Wall Street from regulation, and to bail out the big guys when things go terribly wrong. But they see no need to help ordinary people who are in financial trouble -- those trapped in bankruptcy and faced with foreclosure because they've lost their jobs, medical bills have overwhelmed them or divorce has ruined their financial plans.
You just can't understand that kind of callousness?
Don't be a whiner. Follow the campaign money.
David Hawpe's columns appear Sundays and Wednesdays in the Community Forum. His e-mail address is dhawpe@courier-journal.com.
Editor's comment: While David Hawpe's piece may be on point, it unfairly targets Senator Mitch McConnell, where others also needed mentioning.
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