Congress’ bailout is really a sellout
By KEN MIDKIFF
Published Friday, October 10, 2008
(http://www.columbiatribune.com/2008/Oct/20081010Comm003.asp)

After calls into U.S. representatives and senators opposing the bailout of Wall Street by a margin of 100-1 (according to CNN), Congress did the exact opposite of what its constituents had called for and gave a bundle of money to those who had caused the monetary woes.

That is not to say some sort of assistance from Congress wasn’t needed. Perhaps dealing with the root of the problem would have been time-consuming and maybe even more costly, but as can be observed by the continued ills of the stock market, throwing money at Wall Street did not resolve our monetary crisis.

Listening to the whines of President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, most of the $700 billion was directed to corporations that have caused the problem and very little to those who would solve the problem. The problem, identified by almost everyone, was that several large banks and insurance companies had purchased "sub-prime, adjustable-rate" mortgages, and once rates were raised to above prime, people couldn’t make their payments - and the banks and insurance companies looked to Congress for a "bailout." But instead of assisting those being foreclosed on, Congress chose the easy way out and bailed out large banking corporations.

Meanwhile, defaults on mortgages and foreclosures go on. A few semi-criminal fat-cats go to luxurious spas; those losing their homes sit on the streets with their furniture and clothing.

After intense lobbying by the Wall Street firms and a few million tossed to manufacturers of toy arrows, a few more million to rum dealers and yet more millions to other earmarked causes, Congress caved. This was, incidentally, a bipartisan sellout as exemplified by the fact that both Barack Obama and John McCain voted "yes" on the massive monetary bill. Both parties decried the bill but held their noses and voted for it, claiming it was the "only game in town." It was because no one had come up with any other game. Only now, after passage by Congress and signature by our quacking president, is the bill being debated.

So, what does this have to do with the environment? Simply this: Deregulation and privatization don’t work. This should be apparent, what with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management required to give top priority to oil and gas exploration and leases (private profits on public lands), advocacy efforts by the national and state governmental agencies on behalf of agribusinesses’ CAFOs and the excesses associated with NAFTA, which I have previously discussed.

We should have learned that large corporations and businesses can’t be trusted to protect much of anything except their own bottom lines. Up until the passages of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act (among others), industry pretty much could do anything with the public resources. Result? Rivers, lakes and streams heavily polluted, even a river or two on fire. Black and choking smoke billowing out of smokestacks. The bald eagle - our national symbol - came close to checking out for good.

But thanks to the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts, we now have vastly improved water and air quality and a host of recovered species.

We tried letting the free market work unencumbered for the first 400 years of the Industrial Revolution, and all we got was grief.

Yet a lot of the opposition to the bailout was based on a belief that government shouldn’t interfere with the free market - that intervention would do more harm than good. Even now, some right-wing politicians are talking about more deregulation, ignoring all indications that a lack of regulations got us deep in doo-doo.

As events have unfolded, it should be without question that a sellout doesn’t work. All we get is degraded natural resources, to say nothing of empty bank accounts, retirement funds and pocketbooks.

Bailout. Rescue. Whatever. Call it what is: a sellout.