Lawmakers both right and left say constituents do not support bailout by a large margin

[avaistheone1]

Constituents Make Their Bailout Views Known

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — Americans’ anger is in full bloom, jumping off the screen in capital letters and exclamation points, in the e-mail in-boxes of elected representatives in the nation’s capital.
“I am hoping Congress can find the backbone to stand on their feet and not their knees before BIG BUSINESS,” one correspondent wrote to Representative Jim McDermott of Washington.

“I’d rather leave a better world to my children — NOT A BANKRUPT NATION. Whew! Pardon my shouting,” wrote another.

Mr. McDermott is a liberal Democrat, but his e-mail messages look a lot like the ones that Representative Candice S. Miller, a conservative Republican from Michigan, is receiving. “NO BAILOUT, I am a registered republican,” one constituent wrote. “I will vote and campaign hard against you if we have to subsidize the very people that have sold out MY COUNTRY.”
The backlash, in phone calls as well as e-mail messages, is putting lawmakers in a quandary as they weigh what many regard as the most consequential decision of their careers: whether to agree to President Bush’s request to spend an estimated $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue the financial services system.

Around the country, Republican and Democratic voters are rising up in outright opposition to the White House plan or, at the very least, to express concern that it is being pushed through Congress in haste.

Lawmakers, in turn, are agonizing over what to do. Mrs. Miller said she had been “trying to be very deliberative about it,” listening to administration officials like Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., consulting with bankers from her district and independent experts. She sounded torn Wednesday, saying she was looking for guidance from Republican leaders and hoping they would come together with their Democratic counterparts on a bipartisan plan.

“I would say it’s the most concerned I’ve been since I’ve been in Congress,” said the congresswoman, a former Michigan secretary of state who won her House seat in 2002. “I appreciate all of the input that I’m getting from my constituents, but I’m just not reacting to that — I can’t until I understand it better and feel comfortable with my vote. And I’m not sure how I’m going to be voting yet.”

Meanwhile, the complaints keep coming, and several Congressional offices agreed to share them with reporters, though only on condition that the senders’ names not be published, for privacy reasons.
Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, has received nearly 17,000 e-mail messages, nearly all opposed to the bailout, her office said. More than 2,000 constituents called Ms. Boxer’s California office on Tuesday alone; just 40 favored the bailout. Her Washington office received 918 calls. Just one supported the rescue plan.

Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said he had been getting 2,000 e-mail messages and telephone calls a day, roughly 95 percent opposed. When Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent who votes with Democrats, posted a petition on his Web site asking Mr. Paulson to require that taxpayers receive an equity stake in the bailed-out companies, more than 20,000 people signed.

“We certainly have never brought in 20,000 names in a day and a half,” Mr. Sanders said, sounding astonished. “For us, that’s off the wall.”

It is much the same on the Republican side. Aides to Senator Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican who has called the bailout plan “un-American,” said the senator had received more constituent reaction to the bailout plan than to any issue since the immigration debate.
Representative Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois, said he had not seen such an outpouring since President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999.

Constituent communications, of course, are no shock to lawmakers, especially since the age of e-mail messages and automated “robo-calls” make it possible for voters to vent en masse. But members of Congress say reaction to the bailout does not appear orchestrated or coordinated, but rather individual expressions that come from the grass roots and run across the philosophical spectrum.
War opponents, for instance, are telling lawmakers that they are tired of an administration that, in Mr. McDermott’s words, has “cried wolf” and played “the fear card” too many times by leading the nation into war in Iraq to find nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and curbing civil rights in the name of pursuing terrorists.

“The last time that Congress hurriedly passed legislation that the administration presented as ‘urgent’ we got the Patriot Act, with its mix of necessary reforms and onerous civil rights abuses,” one of Senator Brown’s constituents wrote. “Do not fall into this trap again.”
Others, invoking the Bush administration’s efforts to expand executive authority, are irate over the idea that one person — Mr. Paulson, and then his successor — would control so much taxpayer money. “So many people have said to me, ‘This is a democracy; this isn’t a dictatorship,’ ” Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said.

Fiscal conservatives, on the other hand, see the White House abandoning core principles, marching down a treacherous road toward government intervention in the markets. “We are turning into a socialist country,” one voter warned an aide to Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico. “Let the markets work.”

But in the end, from the right or the left, lawmakers say the message is the same: Slow down, catch your breath and do not make any rash decisions, no matter what the White House says.
“This is too serious a problem for the administration to expect us to just rubber-stamp a $700 billion proposal and rush to get out of town,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. “That’s something my constituents definitely won’t tolerate.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/business/25voices.html?em=&pagewanted=print

[lapfog_1]

1. Then let's not do any deal.

And make sure that the American People have only themselves to blame when the soup kitchens and bread lines start.

This isn't about saving some Wall Street Firms. It's about saving their INVESTORS, investors who can choose to no longer invest in the US. And if they choose to not invest here, we are toast.

[ContinentalOp]

4. No, sorry. A $700 billion handout to Wall Street IS just about saving those firms.

If we really want to clean up the mess, we need a better plan, new regulations, and some real numbers rather than "a big number."

[vaberella]

9. That's what the Dems have done with the second bill or revised first bill.

The 700 Billion is not completely arbitrary (watch Olbermann talk about this on last nights show). It's quite detailed, but it was set to protect all of AIG. There is only 100 Billion dollars of risky debt, the other 600 billion is actually good debt that could be paid back and we'd get returns. That means 85% of the debt would be returned to the people. This is why Obama requested and they put in the clause equity shares. Do you know what that means? The taxpayers get money back and we basically are socialist nation.

This has already been talked about and the Dems provided the best plan. It needs more work, but it was well put and met about 4 of Obama's provisions.

[lapfog_1]

11. It saves the remaining banks and investment houses.

that's true. But almost as an after thought.

If we don't save the investments they are holding, we won't get any more investments.

It's a credit and liquidity crisis.

but hey, if everyone wants to think that this is all about fatcats, etc. Be my guest.

See you on the bread lines (but, of course, you think that can't happen).

[ContinentalOp]

13. It's not that I don't think that can happen.

I just question the idea that it's going to happen by Monday if we don't rush something through Congress this weekend. I'm just not convinced that any of the current proposals are the best course of action to actually fix the problem. But I guess that's because I don't find the messenger convincing and the way the whole thing is being politicized seems awfully convenient.

[lapfog_1]

16. It can happen fast.

It wasn't covered much in the news, but there were very long lines at AIG offices around the globe as people tried to remove their money before we stuffed a bunch of cash into keeping it afloat for a bit.

But this one won't have lines of people, simply wired or phoned orders to transfer millions (or billions) of assets out of the US. It's a crisis of confidence.

[Hamlette]

14. we are not giving $700B to a bunch of fat cats

the problem is not deregulation, it is AICPA rules which require banks to "write down" mortgages to present value. As real estate prices go down, the banks have to reflect that on the balance sheets. That means there IS NO MONEY to loan.

You might not care, but main street runs on credit. It's not a big credit card balance like some americans who live beyond their means, it is DOING BUSINESS. If you can't do that, you can't do business.

If the banks can't loan money, main street fails. If main street fails, we are IN A FRIGGING DEPRESSION.

I don't expect you to take my word for it but this is something I know about. Ask a banker. I know you probably hate them all but try to survive without them. I'd also add, not all of them are dishonest money grubbers. Some are honest businessmen.

Maybe we are too far away from the great depression for any of you to remember what that was like.

[ContinentalOp]

17. You set up a lot of strawmen there.

Where did I say all bankers were dishonest money grubbers?

My only point was that Paulson's original $700B plan looked like nothing but a big handout to wall street. And considering the sleazy fearmongering way that they tried to push that plan through Congress, I'm skeptical of the supposed urgency. Why can't we take a week or two and work out a better plan?

And it's interesting that you think deregulation didn't get us into this mess. That's a point of view that I haven't really seen expressed here before.

[avaistheone1]

21. No bailout -James K. Galbraith says don't worry about Wall St fat cats. You can't save everyone.

A Bailout We Don't Need

The point of the bailout is to buy assets that are illiquid but not worthless. But regular banks hold assets like that all the time. They're called "loans."

With banks, runs occur only when depositors panic, because they fear the loan book is bad. Deposit insurance takes care of that. So why not eliminate the pointless $100,000 cap on federal deposit insurance and go take inventory? If a bank is solvent, money market funds would flow in, eliminating the need to insure those separately. If it isn't, the FDIC has the bridge bank facility to take care of that.

Next, put half a trillion dollars into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fund -- a cosmetic gesture -- and as much money into that agency and the FBI as is needed for examiners, auditors and investigators. Keep $200 billion or more in reserve, so the Treasury can recapitalize banks by buying preferred shares if necessary -- as Warren Buffett did this week with Goldman Sachs. Review the situation in three months, when Congress comes back. Hedge funds should be left on their own. You can't save everyone, and those investors aren't poor

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092403033.html?wpisrc=newsletter



I'm with the reknown progressive economist: Don't be fooled. F*** the bailout.

[avaistheone1]

18. Bailing out failing banks with poor management & regulations will not save these banks.

Supporting disciplined and sound financial institutions will bring foreign investment.

Increasing our debt has a greater chance of increasing our bread lines.

This bailout is just a bandaid. These financial institutions need to come up or with a better plan or they do not deserve any of our support or our money.

[avaistheone1]

19. ...

[Eric J in MN]

20. Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, and...

...the financial system kept going.

People who bought stocks in companies like IBM though Lehman Brothers still own those stocks.

[evlbstrd]

2. Excellent.

[vaberella]

3. That's fine. Then we're fucked. AIG doesn't affect millions of

Americans only (and it affects us) that have their insurance through them. It affects teh ENTIRE economic sphere. There are Europeans who have insurance claims with AIG and we have Asian countries connected to AIG. AIG collapses and it's over, there's no doubt about. Everyone gets fucked over...

I don't like the Bail out, but I agree it has to be done and I agree that they should create the provisions Obama set out and more.

[ContinentalOp]

5. AIG was already bailed out. This is something different.

This is another, newer bailout, no?

[vaberella]

7. No.

AIG has not been bailed out. IndyMac was seized it was FMx2 (Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac) who had an initial bailout of 350 million. They were bailed out.

The talk now is about AIG and the 700 Billion dollar bail out that the Fed is requesting. There has been no conclusion yet on this 700 Billion dollar deal, all of this is what the show is about with McCain and provisions applied to a bill which creates oversight and regulations.

So you're wrong that this is another bill. Constituents are angry because they think we're bailing out and giving hte money to CEOs like what happened with FMx2. That's not what was going to happen here becuase it's too public of a situation and something that called for printing more money.

[ContinentalOp]

10. So what was the $85 billion AIG bailout last week all about? -nt-

[1corona4u]

6. Not only that, people don't stop and think...

like with AIG. They happen to insure a lot of companies. If you get hurt on the job, who do you think pays for it? I got hurt on the job, and guess who our insurance company was. AIG. I was out of work, with medical bills for SIX months. They also do other types of insurance as well. They do auto insurance. Suppose someone who had AIG auto insurance lost coverage after they crashed, and they didn't get other coverage, hit your car, and totalled it. Your insurance would have to pay. Guess who's insurance is going up? Yours.

Yep, one way or another, we would all pay for it anyway. Everything that happens on Wallstreet affects us on Mainstreet.

[vaberella]

8. Yup exactly right. Companies are hold insurance with AIG--that means millions out of work.

It will result in Great Depression three times worse.

Thanks for your post 1corona4u!!

[avaistheone1]

15. Please stop creating fear & mushroom clouds. The AIG bailout has already happened. We own it.

We bailed AIG out about 10 days ago. It is over. It is done.

Please read:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html

[avaistheone1]

12. We just gave AIG an $85 billion bailout. The govt is already a 79% stakeholder

U.S. to Take Over AIG in $85 Billion Bailout;
Central Banks Inject Cash as Credit Dries Up
Emergency Loan Effectively Gives Government Control of Insurer;
Historic Move Would Cap 10 Days That Reshaped U.S. Finance
SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

The U.S. government seized control of American International Group Inc. -- one of the world's biggest insurers -- in an $85 billion deal that signaled the intensity of its concerns about the danger a collapse could pose to the financial system.

The step marks a dramatic turnabout for the federal government, which had been strongly resisting overtures from AIG for an emergency loan or some intervention that would prevent the insurer from falling into bankruptcy. Just last weekend, the government essentially pulled the plug on Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., allowing the big investment bank to go under instead of giving it financial support. This time, the government decided AIG truly was too big to fail.

The U.S. negotiators drove a hard bargain. Under terms hammered out Tuesday night, the Fed will lend up to $85 billion to AIG, and the U.S. government will effectively get a 79.9% equity stake in the insurer in the form of warrants called equity participation notes. The two-year loan will carry an interest rate of Libor plus 8.5 percentage points. (Libor, the London interbank offered rate, is a common short-term lending benchmark.)

The loan is secured by AIG's assets, including its profitable insurance businesses, giving the Fed some protection even if markets continue to sink. And if AIG rebounds, taxpayers could reap a big profit through the government's equity stake.

"This loan will facilitate a process under which AIG will sell certain of its businesses in an orderly manner, with the least possible disruption to the overall economy," the Fed said in a statement.

It puts the government in control of a private insurer -- a historic development, particularly considering that AIG isn't directly regulated by the federal government. The Fed took the highly unusual step using legal authority granted in the Federal Reserve Act, which allows it to lend to nonbanks under "unusual and exigent" circumstances, something it invoked when Bear Stearns Cos. was rescued in March.

As part of the deal, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson insisted that AIG's chief executive, Robert Willumstad, step aside. Mr. Paulson personally told Mr. Willumstad the news in a phone call on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the call.

Mr. Willumstad will be succeeded by Edward Liddy, the former head of insurer Allstate Corp.
AIG's bailout caps a tumultuous 10 days that have remade the American financial system. In that time, the government has engineered rescues that insert it deep into the housing and insurance industries, while Wall Street has watched two of its last four big independent brokerage firms exit the scene.

The U.S. on Sept. 6 took over mortgage-lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they teetered near collapse. This Sunday, the U.S. refused to bail out Wall Street pillar Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy-court protection and is now being sold off in pieces. That same day, another struggling Wall Street titan, Merrill Lynch & Co., agreed to sell itself to Bank of America Corp.

The AIG deal followed a day of high drama in Washington. The Treasury's Mr. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke convened in the early evening an unexpected meeting of top congressional leaders. Late in the trading day Tuesday, anticipation that the government might assist the insurer helped propel the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a 1.3% gain.
In bailing out AIG, the Federal Reserve appeared to be motivated in part by worries that Wall Street's financial crisis could begin to spill over into seemingly safe investments held by small investors, such as money-market funds that invest in AIG debt.

Indeed, on Tuesday the $62 billion Primary Fund from the Reserve, a New York money-market firm, said it "broke the buck" -- that is, its net asset value fell below the $1-a-share level that funds like this must maintain. Breaking the buck is an extremely rare occurrence. The fund was pinched by investments in bonds issued by now collapsing Lehman Brothers.

Money-market funds are supposed to be among the safest investments available. No fund in the $3.6 trillion money-market industry has lost money since 1994, when Orange County, Calif., went bankrupt. A number of money-market funds own securities issued by AIG. The firm is also a big insurer of some money-market instruments.

Credit Downgrade
AIG's financial crisis intensified Monday night when its credit rating was downgraded, forcing it to post $14.5 billion in collateral. The insurer has far more than that in assets that it could sell, but it could not get the cash quickly enough to satisfy the collateral demands. That explains the interest in obtaining a bridge loan to carry it through. AIG's board approved the rescue Tuesday night.

AIG's board said in a statement that the deal would "protect all AIG policyholders, address rating agency concerns and give AIG the time necessary to conduct asset sales on an orderly basis."
The final decision to help AIG came Tuesday as the federal government concluded it would be "catastrophic" to allow the insurer to fail, according to a person familiar with the matter. Over the weekend, federal officials had tried to get the private sector to pony up some funds. But when that effort failed, Fed Chairman Bernanke, New York Fed President Timothy Geithner and Treasury Secretary Paulson concluded that federal assistance was needed to avert an AIG bankruptcy, which they feared could have disastrous repercussions.

Staff from the Federal Reserve and Treasury worked on the plan through Monday night. President George W. Bush was briefed on the rescue Tuesday afternoon during a meeting of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets.

That the government would prop up AIG financially offers a stark indication of the breadth of the insurer's role in the global economy. If it were to have trouble meeting its obligations, the potential domino effect could reach around the world.

For one thing, banks and mutual funds are major holders of AIG's debt and could take a hit if the insurer were to default. In addition, AIG was a major seller of "credit-default swaps," essentially insurance against default on assets tied to corporate debt and mortgage securities. Weakness at AIG could force financial institutions in the U.S., Europe and Asia that bought these swaps to take write-downs or losses.

AIG's millions of insurance policyholders appear to be considerably less at risk. That's because of how the company is structured and regulated. Its insurance policies are issued by separate subsidiaries of AIG, highly regulated units that have assets available to pay claims. In the U.S., those assets can't be shifted out of the subsidiaries without regulatory approval, and insurance is also regulated strictly abroad.

Tuesday afternoon, after the market closed, AIG put out a statement saying its basic insurance and retirement services businesses are "fully capable of meeting their obligations to policyholders." AIG said it was trying to "increase short-term liquidity in the parent company," but said that didn't "include any effort to reduce the capital of any of its subsidiaries or to tap into Asian operations for liquidity." Asia is one of AIG's largest markets.
Financial Pain

Where the company is feeling financial pain is at the corporate level, even while its insurance operations are healthy.

The urgency of federal aid came into stark relief Tuesday as other options fell off the table and pressures continued to build. On Tuesday, AIG's attempt to raise as much as $75 billion from private-sector banks failed. The banks advising the firm concluded it would be all but impossible to organize a loan of that size, making the government AIG's chief hope.

As a result of its credit downgrades, the insurer has to post $14.5 billion in collateral to bolster its credit rating. In the debt markets, AIG also has to post additional collateral to investment banks and others it trades with.

Adding to AIG's woes, investors continued to pummel the company's stock on Tuesday, pushing the share price down 21%, to $3.75. It was the third double-digit percentage decline in the past three trading days. AIG's shares are now down 94% for the year.

AIG's cash squeeze is driven in large part by losses in a unit separate from its traditional insurance businesses. That financial-products unit, which has been a part of AIG for years, sold the credit-default swap contracts designed to protect investors against default in an array of assets, including subprime mortgages.

But as the housing market has crumbled, the value of those contracts has dropped sharply, driving $18 billion in losses over the past three quarters and forcing AIG to put up billions of dollars in collateral. AIG raised $20 billion earlier this year. But the ongoing demands are straining the holding company's resources.

That strain contributed to the ratings downgrades on Monday. Those downgrades, in turn, ratcheted up the pressure on the company to come up with more cash, quickly.
Most insurance companies don't have financial-products units like these. But over nearly four decades, former CEO, Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg built AIG into a firm that resembled no other. He transformed its insurance business, both by expanding abroad -- notably in China, where AIG has its roots -- and by buying up other firms.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html

[vaberella]

22. I'd like to issue an apology to the OP and another poster...

I have just read all the information. This is much larger than I had expected and I found a great link on Huffingtonpost detailing the situation.

Yes, we did already bail out AIG and with 85 Billion dollar debt. So we own it and we should recieve equity shares on that one.

This bail out is in relation to the proposed bail out plan that went back as far as early 2008, possibly February/March.

Why is this important....from what I can gather this is a sum of all the bad debts that's may, and I want to stress may, cause a problem in future. So based on Keith Olbermann's show there is 100 Billion extremely risky debt that will upchuck on us. The other 600 Billion is the "may upchuck" on us debt, but overall pretty sound and make up the 85% equity we should see in future.

Basically just like the 80s S&L disaster, these debts are like S&Ls instead of messing with the market by messing with stock...instead they hedge funded on predatory lending. Making all the debt accumulate into an accounts receivable. So many banks and investment corps were expecting returns, they instead got defaults for their lending activities and should pay the price not be awarded.

So the 700 Billion seems, from what I can see, an encompassing of the entire threatened debt problem that would affect our nation as time moves on, or until some kind of stabilization. If you notice, it was when a Bank or Investment company collapsed we'd come to the rescue, I guess this is to make sure there's an all around plan or "savings account" to cover any and all bail outs. So instead of going from time to time, the Fed wants more control and more money to control. They're almost shaping themselves into the Bundesbank.

I hope I explained that correctly. Is this good? Well it shows how shitty our economy happens to be. Is it bad? I would rather not risk it and with the provisions in place I sort of feel more comfortable with this situation although I never said I liked it. I just found it necessary because more will fail, that is inevitable. I don't tend to agree on the media or like politicians much but in order to have a viable economy we need to have a viable credit system. We're currently at the extreme end of a debter-nation.

Look as recently as last night the largest bank failure happened with JP Morgan Chase buying out WaMu and getting rid of what? Almost 500 banks which means a huge mass of people out of work---where do they go when there is no real jobs around. Luckily not too bad with the 401K plans, but still a hit.

I see this as an insurance and I see what they're saying. Now the original plan proposed by Bush is a joke and should not even be regarded as a bill because that was basically a plan to let companies off the hook. In that regard I never agreed with that sort of bill no clause, no oversight, no protection or regulations and giving power to one man who screams either Paulson or Cheney and that's ridiculous. However, something provision and all together different is not so bad.

Below is a link to HuffPo's statement which I find pretty good in explaining the situation to draw and come up with some conclusions and speculations:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/20/bush-asking-for-700-billi_n_127926.html

Edited: To make sentences clear.

[avaistheone1]

23. Thanks vaberella.

No problem. I feel like we all grasping at straws right now. I think we are all very concerned and on edge to some degree. This impacts all of us. jmo

[vaberella]

24. De Nada. I was definitely in the wrong and I did my research. I just hope it made sense.

And I agree...this definitely affects us and I don't like the fact that we're not included in talks. It's like the enterprise (or consortium ala X-Files) is running the ship and I'm a slave on the boat as it's sinking.

:D

[avaistheone1]

25. Yes. That is one of my biggest objections to this plan too - we the people are being excluded. Yet

we will carry the burden for whatever they decide. It also bothers me how they are trying to ramrod this decision down our throats with no time for careful examination or alternatives. This problem did not develop overnight. It was years in the making.

:hi:

[vaberella]

27. Exactly. I wonder if I call Obama's base someone can explain it to us? n/t

[avaistheone1]

30. Is your congressional rep a Democrat? S/he may be the best one

to explain it and provide more details.

I imagine Obama's camp is juggling more than a dozen issues at any given time. I just don't know how helpful they might be or how much time they could afford to respond.

[ContinentalOp]

26. Hey, it's understandable. It's very hard to keep up and the whole thing is very confusing.

Especially since this latest "bailout" isn't actually targeted at any specific institution but was just requested as a general fund for Paulson to use as he pleases.

[vaberella]

28. Exactly. Of course Dodd has changed that dynamic, but that was

the original plan. Paulson weirds me out because of that. I don't know if power would defer to him or as rumor had it, to Cheney.

[ContinentalOp]

31. Oh, I didn't even know about the Dodd plan which apparently is different than what Barney Frank...

has been talking about.

So basically, there is no plan. Nobody has a clue yet.

[vaberella]

34. Oh right. Frank did have a plan, he's writing it with Dodd..Link below:

They seem to be working on it together. But Dodd took charge and basically in MSM he's in charge of the whole thing. Frank said he wrote something but that was dumped quick and then Dodd got on the band wagon and they're working on it together. But definitely Dodd is getting more air time and Reid.


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/04/trouble-for-the.html

[avaistheone1]

29. What a slush fund! And Paulsen came to Congress with a 2 page

half-baked plan full of vagaries expecting 700 Billion bucks FAST!!

What a country!

[vaberella]

35. Hey....it was 2.5. He's an ass wipe like Bush. I prefer Bernanke but he's being led by the nose.

n/t

[barack the house]

32. It's good to see America stand up but it should of come sooner at the corruption around Iraq really

[barack the house]

33. This should be just as adamant on Obama too.