McConnell and BushTrying To Scare Kentuckians Into Writing A Blank Check — No Questions Asked, Please!
Shawn Dixon September 22nd, 2008
During the course of his career Mitch McConnell has taken over $3.6 Million from the banking industry. Now McConnell owes his banker friends a favor and he is asking Kentuckians to pull out their checkbooks and pay them back on his behalf. As Mark Hebert noted earlier this week, an independent group has found that McConnell has accepted millions in campaign cash from Wall St. banks during his four terms as a U.S. senator. That’s why it’s no surprise that Mitch McConnell is calling on congress to quickly pass the $1 trillion bailout, with almost no oversight and no real incentive for Wall Street to tackle its problem of corruption, for his friends in the financial industry
Using the same type of scare tactics and fear mongering he used in the run up to the Iraq War, McConnell is once again asking taxpayers and voters to cede power to him and George W. Bush without asking questions.
McConnell, trying to scare Americans into accepting the administrations plan without asking questions and leaving the the executive totally unaccountable, compared the American economy to a burning house.
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said that when you’re house is on fire, you don’t stop and ask the firemen for smoke detectors. “You want them to put out the fire,” McConnell said this afternoon.
Politico also documented McConnell’s “shoot now, ask questions later” strategy for the bailout.
“There will be more questions about this plan. I have many myself,” he said. “But we owe it to the American people to do our due diligence quickly and to act swiftly, Democrats and Republicans alike, to contain this crisis before it’s too late.”
Well then Senator McConnell, if there are questions to be asked, when will they be asked? After the passage of the $1 trillion bailout? I, for one, don’t think Kentuckians or the rest of America is ready to fall for that trick again. The last time the last time McConnell and Bush asked for power from Americans and asked us to trust them, they recklessly led us into a quagmire which will cost the country as much as $3 trillion.
Later in his interview with Politico, McConnell claimed that the bailout package as it is protects folks on Main Street. McConnell insults voters when he makes such outlandish claims. In its current form, the plan actually asks Main Street to clean up the mess made on Wall Street. The bailout package being proposed by the Bush administration asks taxpayers to buy up all the bad investments that Wall Street has made. Essentially the government is asking to write off Wall Street’s losses on the backs of the American taxpayer.
While I agree that something has to be done, writing a blank check to the administration is not the answer. As it currently stands, the bailout package for Wall Street is a complete gift to corporate America with no strings attached. As Paul Krugman pointed out in today’s New York Times, the plan passes the already failed risk to the taxpayer, while all the profit will remain on Wall Street.
The plan being proposed by Bush and supported by Mitch McConnell, as it is, is absolutely unacceptable. I said a few days ago this financial situation would be a real test of McConnell’s leadership. It’s now clear he will continue his pattern of failed leadership.
Mitch McConnell just doesn’t get it. He is once again asking Kentuckians to write a blank check to him and the Bush administration. We’ve seen this show, folks. And it won’t end well this time either — if we let him get away with it.
