The Week in Review
Statement
Date: 03/20/2009
There was a furious reaction to huge bonuses given to executives at the bailed-out American International Group. "These people are being rewarded for miserable failure," Senator Bernie Sanders said. He wondered if the White House fully comprehended the country's outrage. The senator also raised objections to Senate confirmation of a nominee with deep roots in the failed policies that caused the economy to collapse. With the economy in tatters, the escalating war in Afghanistan and Friday's sixth anniversary of the war in Iraq were little noted.
A.I.G. The House on Thursday voted 328 to 93 to impose a 90 percent tax on $165 million in bonuses distributed to executives of American International Group, the insurance giant kept afloat by a $170 billion taxpayer bailout. In the Senate, the tax-writing Finance Committee also was preparing legislation aimed at recapturing the bulk of the bonus money. At the White House, President Obama spoke of a desire to "channel our anger in a constructive way." An Obama admirer, Sanders ventured that the president is "underestimating the rage and frustration that people are feeling." Hundreds of Vermonters wrote to Sanders about A.I.G. To read some of their reactions, click here. To read more from the senator in a column published by Politico, click here.
Credit Cards Amid the firestorm over bonuses, there was growing support for a bill to cap credit card interest rates. One-third of all credit card holders in this country are now paying interest rates above 20 percent and as high as 41 percent more than double what they paid in interest in 1990. "At a time when many Americans in the collapsing middle class use credit cards for groceries, gas and college expenses, what Wall Street and credit card companies are doing is not much different from what gangsters and loan sharks do," Sanders wrote in The Hill. The bill to set a national usury rate, introduced by Senators Sanders and Dick Durbin, now include Senators Tom Harkin, Carl Levin and Sheldon Whitehouse as cosponsors. On the Tonight Show, President Obama said, "it's legal to charge somebody 30 percent on their credit card, and charge fees and so forth that people don't always know what they're getting into. So the answer is to deal with those laws in a way that gives the average consumer a break." To read Sanders' column published on Friday, click here. To take our poll, click here.
Market Regulation Sanders has raised objections to the nomination of a former Treasury Department official, Gary Gensler, the chair the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. "While Mr. Gensler clearly is an intelligent and knowledgeable person, I cannot support his nomination," Sanders said. "Mr. Gensler worked with Senators Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of A.I.G. and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history. He supported Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which allowed banks like Citigroup to become too big to fail.' He worked to deregulate electronic energy trading, which led to the downfall of Enron and the spike in energy prices. At this moment in our history, we need an independent leader who will help create a new culture in the financial marketplace and move us away from the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior which has caused so much harm to our economy."
War The Iraq war began with missile strikes and a bombing mission on Baghdad during the pre-dawn hours of March 20, 2003. As that war winds down, fighting is ratcheting up in Afghanistan. "International terrorism is serious business, and the United States has to be effective in fighting it. That means being smart, and being smart means much more than just military power," Sanders said. "The last thing in the world that I want to see is our new president -- who I have a lot of confidence in, in many respects - get bogged down the way LBJ was bogged down in Vietnam. We don't want to see another war in Iraq, which was so disastrous in so many respects. Sending 17,000 more troops into Afghanistan is, to me, not a good idea."
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