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Tag Archives: Bob Corker

Today on Let’s Make a Deal

09 Thursday Dec 2010

Posted by Craig in budget, Congress, economy, Obama, Politics, Taxes

≈ 1 Comment

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Bob Corker, compromise, Don't Ask Don't Tell, double dip recession, House Democrats, Lamar Alexander, Larry Summers, payroll tax holiday, President Obama, press conference, Social Security, Susan Collins, take it or leave it, Vice President Biden

The latest on “The Deal”:

President Obama at Tuesday’s press conference: [I]t’s a big, diverse country, and people have a lot of complicated positions, it means that in order to get stuff done we’re gonna compromise…This country was founded on compromise.”

Yesterday:

“Vice President Biden told House Democrats on Wednesday that the tax agreement the White House struck with Republicans was essentially final, forcing the divided caucus to decide whether to press its fight for changes in the package. “It’s up or down,” Biden told the caucus in a closed-door meeting, according to Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.).

“So far as the administration is concerned, it’s take it or leave it,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), one of the most vocal critics of the tax deal, told The Hill after the meeting. “I would say [Biden] was pretty specific about that.”

[…]

“It’s fair to say that he said, ‘We’ve negotiated with the Republicans, but we’re not going to negotiate with the Democrats,” Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said in paraphrasing the vice president.

Larry Summers is saying, ‘One wrong move and the economy gets it.’

“One of President Obama’s top economic advisers warned on Wednesday that the nation could slip back into recession if Congress did not pass the administration’s tax cut deal with Republicans, as the White House sought to press Democrats into backing the plan.

“Failure to pass this bill in the next couple weeks would materially increase the risk that the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip” recession, Mr. Summers told reporters at a briefing.”

But in September:

“Maintaining tax cuts for top wage-earners should take a back seat to other more pressing measures, White House economic advisor Larry Summers said…”With deficits looming as seriously as they are, why is now the right moment to lock in several hundred billion dollars of tax cuts for 2 percent of the population when we could be using those revenues to strengthen incentives for investment in the country’s future?”

What a difference 3 months makes.

President Obama’s Republican “friends” are making clear their intentions on the so-called “temporary” reduction in Social Security payroll taxes:

“Republicans acknowledged that the expiration of the tax holiday will be treated as a tax increase. “Once something like this goes into place, a year from now, when it expires, it’ll be portrayed as a tax increase,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). So in a body like Congress, precedents matter and this is setting a precedent. I think that certainly is going to create some problems down the road if it passes.”

“Once you bring a rate down, if it goes back up, people will feel that. They’ll feel their paycheck being less and that argument” — that letting it expire amounts to a tax hike — “eventually is bound to be made,” said Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.).

[…]

Lamar Alexander, the Senate’s number-three Republican, also said that reform of Social Security should be tied to moving that tax rate back up. “My personal hope is that it doesn’t become permanent unless we deal with a way to make Social Security solvent over the long term,” he told HuffPost. “You have to remember, the payroll tax funds Social Security and I like the idea of a lower payroll tax contribution, but we’ve got to make sure Social Security is solvent, which we should be doing this next year as the first order of business.” The way to make the program “solvent” and keep taxes low, of course, is to reduce benefits.

On a related note, this is what happens when you go down the road of giving in to the demands of “hostage takers.” The line starts to form:

“Here’s what Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that she needs to support a full Senate debate on the defense authorization bill (the vehicle for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal): 15 guaranteed votes on amendments (10 for Republicans, and 5 for Democrats), and somewhere around four days to debate the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid already promised her the 15 amendments, but his initial offer was for a day or two of debate. Here’s her response to reporters tonight, after a Senate vote.

“The majority leader’s allotment of time for to debate those amendments was extremely short, so I have suggested doubling the amount of time, assuring that there would be votes, and making sure that the Republicans get to pick our own amendments as opposed to the Majority Leader.”

“If he does that I will do all that I can to help him proceed to the bill. But if he does not do that, then I will not,” she added.”

“Audacity” is the New “Uppity”

26 Wednesday May 2010

Posted by Craig in Congress, financial reform, health care, Obama, Politics, Republicans

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audacity, Bob Corker, meeting, Pat Roberts, President Obama, Senate Republicans, thin-skinned

President Obama held a meeting with Senate Republicans yesterday–no cameras present. I would assume GOP senators learned a lesson from the dressing-down their House counterparts took in January with cameras rolling and insisted on that. Afterward, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Pat Roberts of Kansas gave their versions of what transpired, and what they allegedly said to the president.

Corker spoke with Greg Sargent of The Plum Line:

“He got all uppity I felt like there was a degree of audacity in him being there today, after passing his third large partisan bill,” Corker told me, insisting Republicans had been stiff-armed by the White House on financial reform, health care, and the stimulus.

“I told him I felt like a prop afer the actions they had taken regarding bipartisanship,” Corker said. “It hit a nerve.” Corker added that Obama came back at him with “quite a lengthy response,” but he declined to share what, precisely, the president said.”

(Memo to President Obama: Limit your responses to Republican questions to short catchy phrases and words of no more than 2 syllables, they’re used to listening to Palin and get easily confused).

Hit a nerve, Bob? I can’t imagine why. Probably because you and your colleagues in the Senate have been nothing but road blocks to everything since day one of President Obama’s administration. (Latest case in point, Sen. Inhofe blocking the lifting of the liability cap on BP.) The president has taken a lot heat from his base for going too far in accommodating Republicans who in spite of those consolations have, with few exceptions, voted against everything. Yeah, I guess that statement might have “hit a nerve.”

Here’s what hits the GOP’s nerve. Their plan from Inauguration Day in January of 2009 was to block any and all legislation. In spite of their obstructionism, two major pieces  of the president’s agenda have been passed (the stimulus package and health care reform) and another (financial reform) is in conference committee.

What Sen. Roberts had to say is so ridiculous it’s barely worth a mention, but it’s a good example of the pervasive Republican attitude toward the president.

“He needs to take a Valium before he comes in and talks to Republicans,” Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) told reporters. “He’s pretty thin-skinned.”

Sen. Roberts, have a little respect please. At least try and fake it when you’re speaking to the national media and not at a Tea Party whinefest rally.

A Crucial Week for Financial Reform

26 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by Craig in bailout, Congress, economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Obama, Politics, Republicans, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Blanche Lincoln, Bob Corker, Chris Dodd, claw back, derivative legislation, financial reform, Goldman Sachs, great vampire squid, Harry Reid, letter, Mitch McConnell, Olympia Snowe, President Obama, Richard Shelby, Scott Brown, This Week

In what’s shaping up as a crucial week in the quest for financial reform there are some encouraging signs, some not so encouraging, and a demonstration by the executives at “the great vampire squid” (aka Goldman Sachs) give us an example of why meaningful reform is necessary.

First, the reasons to be hopeful. There appear to be some cracks in the Republican wall of solidarity. Sen. Olympia Snowe endorsed Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s tough stance toward derivative trading passed last week by the Agriculture Committee. (Sen. Grassley, another possible defector, was the lone Republican on the committee who voted for Lincoln’s proposal). In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, Snowe wrote:

“I believe that strong derivatives regulation goes to the heart of an effective financial reform bill and that Chairman Lincoln’s legislation is a strong step towards realizing this fundamental component to financial reform……I believe that we should err on the side of caution and finally bring full transparency to these markets once and for all and allow regulators to preemptively identify these damaged firms.

“Accordingly, I believe the Senate should start with a comprehensive, strong derivatives reform proposal and defend attempts to weaken it, not the other way around and the legislation produced by the Senate Agriculture Committee includes the strongest safeguards and most robust transparency provisions on our expansive derivatives market.

I urge the Majority Leader to incorporate these provisions into the regulatory reform bill.”

On Friday, Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, “agreed to replace his proposed restrictions on derivatives with those of the Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln.”

On This Week yesterday, Sen. Bob Corker said he intended to propose an amendment containing a “claw back” provision to the legislation “which would take away the personal earnings for the past five years of the corporate officers of failed institutions that fall under the government’s resolution authority.”

Another possible Republican defector might be the newly-elected senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown. Will someone who was elected as a sort of “man of the people” want to be painted as a defender of Wall Street? Especially when he faces re-election in 2 years? Maybe not.

Also on the positive side, “President Obama and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank have personally urged Dodd not to cut a deal with Republicans…This is a welcome sign that Obama realizes that public opinion is moving in the direction of tougher banking reform, and that he learned from the health debate that bipartisan compromise on key reform issues is a snare and a delusion.”

Sen. Dodd has shown signs of weakening the legislation in order to compromise with Republicans leaders in the Senate, Mitch McConnell and Richard Shelby, who want to use the same tactics Republicans used on health care reform—stall and delay as long as possible. Hopefully, Dodd will be emboldened by support from President Obama and not dilute reform to try and pacify those whose intentions are to maintain the status quo.

Now to the crooks at Goldman. What were they doing as the housing market was collapsing and threatening to take the entire economy with it? Having a party:

“As the U.S. housing market began its epic fall nearly three years ago, top executives at Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs cheered the large financial gains the firm stood to make on certain bets it had placed, according to newly released documents.

The documents show that the firm’s executives were celebrating earlier investments calculated to benefit if housing prices fell, a Senate investigative committee found. In an e-mail sent in the fall of 2007, for example, Goldman executive Donald Mullen predicted a windfall because credit-rating companies had downgraded mortgage-related investments, which caused losses for investors.

“Sounds like we will make some serious money,” Mullen wrote.”

To somewhat defend Goldman, what they were doing, “selling short,” (betting against certain investments) is something that happens on Wall Street every day. But, betting against instruments that they designed to fail, and which were sold to investors as AAA investments allowing Goldman to profit from on both ends, may not be illegal (although it should be) but it certainly shows that the execs at the “great vampire squid” have no interest in what’s best for the country. They have one party’s interests in mind—-their own.

Whatever It Is, They’re Against It

17 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by Craig in bailout, Congress, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, special interests, too big to fail, Wall Street

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$50 billion fund, American Banker, Bob Corker, dismantle, endless taxpayer bailouts, FDIC, financial reform, Frank Luntz memo, Harry Reid, letter, Mitch McConnell, Sheila Bair, Susan Collins

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), speaking for all 41 Senate Republicans on the prospects for reforming and regulating the financial system:

That was after Susan Collins (R-ME) became the 41st signature on McConnell’s letter to Harry Reid which reads:

“We are united in our opposition to the partisan legislation reported by the Senate Banking Committee. As currently constructed, this bill allows for endless taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street and establishes new and unlimited regulatory powers that will stifle small businesses and community banks.”

All words straight out of a Frank Luntz memo, telling Republicans how to maintain the status quo while sounding like they are in favor of reform. In other words, just repeat the Luntz-inspired tactics from the health care debate, with “endless taxpayer bailouts” replacing “death panels” as the lie du jour. And a lie is exactly what it is. What will guarantee “endless taxpayer bailouts” is doing nothing. The proposed reform calls for applying the same process to the “too big to fail” institutions that the FDIC uses every day for dealing with banks that become insolvent.

Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC, and whose word I’ll take over McConnell’s 8 days a week, said as much in an interview published at American Banker on Thursday:

Would this bill perpetuate bailouts?
SHEILA BAIR: The status quo is bailouts. That’s what we have now. If you don’t do anything, you are going to keep having bailouts.

But does this bill stop them from happening?
BAIR: It makes them impossible and it should. We worked really hard to squeeze bailout language out of this bill. The construct is you can’t bail out an individual institution – you just can’t do it.

If this had been law prior to 2008, would we have seen the bailouts that took place?
BAIR: No. You could not do an AIG, Bear Stearns, or any of that…This bill would only allow system-wide liquidity support which could not be targeted at an individual firm. You can’t do capital investments at all, period. It’s only liquidity support. No more capital investments. That’s banned under all circumstances.

Do you see any way left for the government to bail out a financial institution?
BAIR: No, and that’s the whole idea. It was too easy for institutions to come and ask for help. They aren’t going to do that. This gives us a response: “Fine, we will take all these essential services and put them in a bridge bank. We will keep them running while your shareholders and debtors take all your losses. And oh, by the way, we are getting rid of your board and you, too.”

Here’s all you need to know about the dishonesty of Senate Republicans. One provision of the bill is for a $50 billion fund to dismantle the “too big to fail” banks. The fund is made up entirely of money which comes from the big banks, not one thin dime from the taxpayers. Republicans want this provision removed. But even if it goes, will they support the remainder of the legislation? I think you can guess the answer:

“McConnell suggested it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Republicans.

“I appreciate the Obama administrations recognition of the need to substantively improve this bill,” McConnell said. “And I hope we can work with them to close the remaining bailout loopholes that put American taxpayers on the hook for financial institutions that become too big to fail.”

Oh by the way, how did the $50 billion get into the legislation to begin with? It was the result of negotiations between Banking Committee members Mark Warner (D-VA) and Bob Corker (R-TN). Needless to say, Corker now opposes the fund he negotiated to include.

Whatever it is, they’re against it.

The "Gang of Eight" on the Senate Banking Committee

02 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by Craig in Congress, Democrats, economy, Obama, Republicans, Uncategorized, Wall Street

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Ben Bernanke, Bob Corker, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Jack Reed, Judd Gregg, Mark Warner, Michael CrapoJamie Dimon, Obama, openness, Richard Shelby, Senate Banking Committee, Timothy Geithner, transparency

Since the “Gang of Six” in the Senate Finance Committee worked out so well, and produced such outstanding results (sarc) in writing health care reform legislation, why not just repeat the process in the Senate Banking Committee as they tackle reforming the financial industry? More openness and transparency from our elected officials in Washington:

“For two months, four pairs of Senate Banking Committee members — each with one Democrat and one Republican — have been meeting behind closed doors to reach a bipartisan compromise on regulatory reform.”

Here are the 8 senators involved, along with the amounts each has taken from financial industry PACs:

Chris Dodd, (D-CT) $3,124,237
Richard Shelby (R-AL) $2,171,369
Mark Warner (D-VA) $330,800
Bob Corker (R-TN) $426,750
Jack Reed (D-RI) $1,554,449
Judd Gregg (R-NH) $709,941
Chuck Schumer (D-NY) $1,629,295
Micheal Crapo (R-ID) $1,237,955

That’s a grand total of $11,184,796. And these are the people who are going to reform the financial system? That’ll be the day. But as good as things are for this new “Gang of Eight.” they’re about to get better:

“…the president’s new proposals have already provoked a sharp increase in the volume and energy of the lobbying on regulatory reform, with more chief executives stepping over their government relations staff to request personal meetings with lawmakers. The big banks, the lobbyists say, have become increasingly alarmed that the legislative process may move in unexpected directions outside their control.”

Well, we certainly have to put a stop to that. Can’t have anything going on that the banksters can’t “control,” can we? Speaking of banksters:

“...Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase had lunch with Mr. Obama last Tuesday, and then met separately on Friday with the Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and the Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner.”

No doubt to discuss who they like in Sunday’s Super Bowl.

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