By all accounts Tuesday’s vote was difficult one for our Alabama Representatives.  The bailout was not a solution I could support given the information I had.  The proposal was the largest corporate bailout in American history.  It would have saddled the American taxpayer with massive additional debt.  It did not have the support of the people of Alabama.  There are questions as to whether or not the proposed bill would have provided a long term solution.  It’s unlikely that most members were able to read and understand all that was in the bill which contained statutory language and was over 100 pages in length.
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Washington continues to put partisanship and petty politics ahead of the American people. In 2006, Democrats promised the American people they would end business as usual. Instead they’ve continually failed the American people and have allowed a brewing financial crisis on Wall Street to threaten Main Street.

Any action by Congress must address important principles: it must protect taxpayers and not leave them responsible for bailing out Wall Street; it must comprehensively reform government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; whose failures are at the root of the financial crisis; and repeal the affordable housing fund which siphons off capital to fund liberal third party organizations.
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This past week, I took Rep. John Kline to task about his record on veterans’ issues. As a result, a Kline spokesman accused me of “intentionally deceiving” voters. But here are the facts:

• The American Legion identifies bills that it supports and credits legislators who co-sponsor them. Out of 181 bills, Kline co-sponsored only nine.
• Disabled American Veterans (DAV) shows that Rep. Kline has the worst voting record of Minnesota’s House members on its bills. In 2004 and 2005, Rep. Kline received a 0 rating from DAV. Read the rest of this entry »

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) hold a briefing on their meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Reid and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) talk about John McCain suspending his campaign so he can partake in discussions on the Wall Street bailout plan.

Red Alert!

Who could forget two years ago when Larry Kissell, a mill worker and public school teacher, came within 330 votes of unseating the Big Oil-funded Republican Congressman Robin Hayes in North Carolina’s 8th District?

Here we are two years later and Larry is even closer now. He recently won the DCCC’s 2008 Mobilize for Change: A National Day of Action award. On that single day, his campaign recruited a record 1,700 grassroots volunteers. Read the rest of this entry »

More good news from Idaho!

Research 2000, a Democrat pollster, has released its latest poll for Idaho’s U.S. Senate seat, and I’m thrilled to see its results reflect the latest Independent poll released two weeks ago.  Research 2000 gives my campaign a 23 point lead over my opponent.

Risch         56%
LaRocco     33%
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Congress Blog Editor Chris Good talks with Hudson Institute President Herbert London, author of “America’s Secular Challenge,” about his book and the cultural impact of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R) VP candidacy.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG have all been bailed out with taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of billions of dollars.  The Feds stepped into broker a deal for Merrill Lynch.  Lehman Brothers is being bought up by a British bank. Now we hear that Goldman Sachs may be on the brink of a similar collapse.  All this is happening as our economy struggles with declining real wages, higher unemployment, record deficits and more foreclosures.  For eight years under the Bush/Cheney Administration, economic policy favored financial giants and the nation’s wealthiest citizens while the prosperity gap has continued to widen.  Now, as these corporations struggle, we are all left to handle the fallout.

Economic policy under the watch of right wing ideologues like Peter Roskam has gutted oversight of our financial markets and has favored corporation special interest over the American people.  Unfortunately, our politicians have been forced to learn the hard way – and at our expense - that what is good for Wall Street is not always good for America. Read the rest of this entry »

It is clear that our current financial crisis is the direct result of irresponsible subprime lending practices developed by Countrywide Financial and other such predatory lenders. Fanning the flames of this crisis are skyrocketing gas prices and increased costs all over the country. New Jersey’s Fifth Congressional District has certainly been hit hard as Americans everywhere face foreclosures, exorbitant prices, and an overall struggle to provide for their families.

One would expect his or her representative to actively work to dig us out of this disaster. Yet my opponent Scott Garrett, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, has stood with the industries he is supposed to oversee. While his constituents are forced to choose between putting food on their tables or filling their gas tanks, a former Countrywide Financial lobbyist literally controls Garrett’s office as his Chief of Staff, and the lender held his mortgage until relatively recently. More so, he has taken tens of thousands of dollars in campaign cash from Big Oil and, in turn, gave the oil and gas industry billions of dollars in tax breaks. Read the rest of this entry »