Sherrod Brown: National Treasure

To Bernanke: "I haven't received one phone call from a constituent that's been positive. I don't think people making $50,000 a year are interested in bailouts out executives whose country club fees are many times that. Does Wall Street owe the American people an apology?"

Now talking about equity stakes in the affected companies. He's got Paulson and Bernanke on the run. Brown is giving voice to this refrain:

Henry is playing the role of Colin Powell in selling a disastrous plan to the American people. We all know how that turned out.

I have come to the conclusion that the bailout bill cannot be fixed and thoughtful members of Congress should simply say no. This is closer to the Social Security privatization fight - where only saying no until privatization was off the table - than the minimum wage increase fight, where Republicans extracted billions in tax breaks for business as the price of paying poor people a little bit more. Liberal congressional leaders are treating the bailout like the minimum wage deal. It is not. This vote is the bookend signature act of the Bush Administration to be coupled with the first vote authorizing Bush to invade Iraq. The details are not particularly relevant. Reports out of Washington say that the Bush Administration is comfortable adding in the notion of taxpayers getting an equity stake in bailed out Wall Street firms, but only if it is option, and not a requirement. And just who do you think is going to take that option? Not Henry Paulson.

There's a serious question to be asked about whether this is an effort to rescue the financial markets or an effort to drain the federal treasury and block a progressive agenda.

...see also Bernie Sanders, another progressive hero, calling for a progressive tax so that the wealthiest Americans can pay for this bailout. Christ, even Jim Bunning is questioning that credit card debt and student loans have been crammed into this bill. This may be a situation where Congress rumbles and grumbles and then passes a shit bill, but I'm not sure...