Reply #1: Action item... contact your Reps...

[Luminous Animal]

Write a letter to your editors...
http://firedoglake.com/2009/03/02/action-tell-speaker-pelosi-to-stand-up-to-ellen-tauscher-and-the-bank-lobbyists-she-represents/

Sign the letter to Nancy Pelosi...
https://secure.firedoglake.com/page/petition/BankLobbyists

"Dear Speaker Pelosi:

I am outraged by the efforts of former Wall Street investment banker Ellen Tauscher and the New Democrat Coalition, who brag about their ability to "flex" and stop a bill to help the mortgage crisis that won't cost the taxpayer one red cent. Politico reports that you "buckled" to their efforts to help the banks and hurt their constituents.

Haven't we done enough for the banks, who want taxpayers to bail them out instead? Will they ever take responsibility for bad loans they should never have made? Tauscher and the New Democrats are not moderates, they are corporatists in the pocket of the banking lobby. Their Executive Director, Adam Pase, is a former banking lobbyist who worked on behalf of predatory lenders to remove regulation of sub-prime loans. Their "moderation" helped create the crisis in the first place.

Credit Suisse says that giving bankruptcy judges the ability to write down mortgages for people who are already in bankruptcy can stop 20% of foreclosures. Each foreclosure is estimated to reduce the value of the surrounding homes by 1%. President Obama and leading economists say that stopping the downward spiral of the foreclosure crisis, where more and more people are left owing more money on their homes than they are worth, is critical to reversing our economic downturn.

If Congress hadn't backed down to the efforts of these "moderates" to stop bankruptcy judges from writing down mortgages in 2007, much of our current crisis could have been averted. We know who these people are working for, and it isn't us.

More than ever, America needs principled and courageous leadership, and you are uniquely situated to provide it. Please start doing so by standing up to the bank lobbyists and the members of Congress they own, like Ellen Tauscher and the New Democrat Coalition. "