Statement of Florida PIRG’s D.C. Consumer Director Ed Mierzwinski on Defeat of Wall Street Bailout
“Today the House of Representatives listened to concerned Main
Street voters and taxpayers and defeated a defective Wall Street
bailout.
The flawed $700 billion package requested by the Bush administration
had been fast-tracked to address the still-real threat of a financial
markets meltdown. Any chance the bill would be worth passing fell apart
when the administration blocked the addition of real protections for
homeowners and taxpayers and cynically insisting on provisions that
made the bailout more like ice cream for the financial industry than
tough medicine. That sweetness for Wall Street, and bitter pills and
big tax bills for Main Street, doomed the bill in the House.
If serious about addressing the problem, Congress must make its
number one priority protection for taxpayers by protecting homeowners
from foreclosure. They must include a mandatory court-supervised
program for modifying loan terms so people can pay their mortgages and
stay in their homes. That will both lower the cost of the bailout and
preserve their home values in communities across the country.
Congress should also improve the bill’s vague and inadequate limits
on executive compensation and improve accountability for the spending
of the $700 billion taxpayer dollars on the table.
It is quite simple: If a company is going to rely on the taxpayer
for cash, then taxpayers, not failed CEOs, deserve first choice of any
bonuses and commissions for its success.
We will oppose any new bill before adjournment that fails to place Main Street first.
We also call on congressional leaders to commit to addressing in the
first 100 days of the next Congress a broader set of financial system
regulatory reforms and of the economic stimulus package for Main Street
that has stalled.”
