FROM HERALD PALLADIUM 12/17//14 Another sad chapter for our U.S. Congress Editor, Most of us dont get congratulated for just barely doing our jobs, but its such an improvement, I guess Congress should be congratulated for passing a budget without shutting down the government. But it came at a cost - and a cost to us, not to Congress. A policy rider on the budget puts the taxpayer back on the hook for losses to big banks in case their risky derivative deals fail again. Also, Congress raised the sum rich donors can give to political parties. Theres a connection here, and its not pretty. The New York Times reported on Dec. 11 that Citigroup wrote four-fifths of the rider that removes the protections to taxpayers against financial losses from bad derivative deals that were put in place after the 2008 financial meltdown. But why did the House Financial Services Committee accept this text from Citigroup? Well, campaign contributions (to both Republicans and Democrats on the committee) are part of the story. And now, part of the cost of the compromise to get a budget is to allow even bigger campaign contributions. It seems the pain to get the budget passed involved allowing people to give congressmen more money to do things like letting banks write their own regulations. Its a bad day for democracy when the cost of keeping the government running is to give big money the power to get government to make them more money. Paul Clements Ex-Democratic candidate for 6th District U.S. Rep. Kalamazoo
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 11:19:32 +0000
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