Letters to the Editor

Standing for Elizabeth

Being a “political junkie” and what I define as an Independent Democrat or Progressive, I’ve tried my best to do the right thing, rather than the smart thing. Perhaps, that’s why I’ve often been critical of the Democrats when they deserve it.

I’ve been especially critical of U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Banking Committee.

In Dodd’s case, he was called out for attempting to insert loopholes into the health care bill. As a consequence, he chose shortly thereafter to announce his intention to retire. He should have resigned.

Frank, on the other hand, copped an attitude with an interviewer when he was unable to explain why he allowed our tax money to be doled out to the Wall Street  “banksters” without conditions. Would he handle his money that way?

The Republicans have acted no better. I recall Republican Sen. Judd Gregg saying that he didn’t want the actions taken to straighten out Wall Street to seem punitive. I beg to differ. Someone has to be held accountable as most of us would be if we threatened to bring down the nation’s banking system.  

Look at it this way, we gave carrots to Wall Street in the form of tax funds to bail them out and what did it get us? It was like helping a neighbor to get on his feet and having him give you a “runaround” when you needed a hand. Should we enable him to gamble with our money, again?

If  the positive results from their massive profits can’t be shown to have been beneficial to our economy, what’s the good of  having too-big-to-fail dinosaurs?

Have they done anything to increase consumer lending and small business investment? Or even paused before foreclosing on hapless homeowners?  

I’m concerned about the welfare of the nation. So, I’m giving my support to a remarkable woman named Elizabeth Warren to be the director of the Consumer Protection Bureau established as part of the Financial Reform legislation.

She is a professor at Harvard Law School and exemplifies the qualities of integrity and fairness that are in short supply as part of our body politic.

In her role as chair of the Bailout Oversight Panel, Warren called out Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Larry Summers of the White House Budget Office to find out which banking interests received our tax money and under what conditions. She’s a person who deserves our support.

The turncoat politicians, Democrat and Republican, deserve our dismissal.

Marvin Clark
Via e-mail