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April 18, 2010 07:03 PM UTC

Meet "Permanent Bailouts," The New "Death Panel"

  • 34 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Who cares if what you’re saying is true, as long as it’s been focus grouped to produce the results you want? As the Washington Post reports:

“Big bank bailouts! Big bank bailouts!”

So goes the refrain for Republican leaders this week, whose escalating attacks on a proposed overhaul of the financial regulatory system center on charges that the legislation perpetuates taxpayer-funded rescues of big Wall Street firms.

Democrats have remained equally persistent in dismissing such claims as “false talking points” and a “parade of bamboozlement,” according to Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), the bill’s author. They argue that their legislation does just the opposite, ensuring that failing financial firms would be shut down and that their management teams, shareholders and creditors would suffer painful losses — all without a dollar of taxpayer money at stake.

As shouting senators from both sides try to sway public opinion, Democrats on Thursday signaled a willingness to bet that they have the stronger hand.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he plans to bring the financial overhaul bill to the Senate floor as soon as next week — earlier than expected. The strategy, according to Obama administration officials and congressional aides, is to pressure Republicans by daring them to make an election-year vote against legislation that Democrats have portrayed as essential to reforming Wall Street…

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has labeled it a “bailout fund,” a criticism some Democrats call laughable.

“This is the irony of ironies. The $50 billion provision in this bill was proposed by Republicans,” Dodd said on the Senate floor Thursday, noting that the bill the House passed last year set up a $150 billion fund. “The idea of requiring these institutions to put up money in advance so that if they fail, they end up paying for the cost of unwinding it — who would object to that?”

If you put it that way it’s likely true that few people would, which is why Sen. Mitch McConnell has taken to booming the words ‘big bank bailouts’ into every microphone he can find. It’s not really that different from the health care reform debate, when Republicans found touring the country warning of ‘death panels’ infinitely preferable to discussing what the plan might actually do–since the specific components of the health reform bill were broadly supported in polling. In this case, McConnell doesn’t want to tell you that he’s arguing the case of those very same big banks, who are solidly opposed to the financial reform bill.

Sure it’s dishonest–but is it really unprecedented? Employing the wild Orwellian rhetoric of ‘death panels’ didn’t stop the passage of health care reform, but it did help weaken support for it on the margins–and gave the far right paranoid justification to “resist” not just health care reform, but anything else Obama proposed in the future. No matter how ridiculous it seems to you, or even openly contemptuous of the truth, there are millions of Americans who will hear McConnell call a bill to end bailouts a “permanent bailout,” and believe him as surely as they believe that Obama wants to kill their Grandma. If you think it’s stupid, you’re just not in the target audience.

It’s going to be like this until November, folks, on about every issue you can think of, because those same millions of Americans most susceptible to such clean breaks from reality–from “death panels” to “permanent bailouts”–are the wave voters Republicans across the nation are counting on.

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34 thoughts on “Meet “Permanent Bailouts,” The New “Death Panel””

  1. Seems to be another of the Luntzian focus-group manufactured talking points, today repeated by some GOP pol on MTP.

    What does it mean?  Who knows.  Sounds good. American, capitalistic, applepietastic.

    And true–those millions of Americans that lost their homes as Goldman Sachs banked on their dissolution–there’s a deal to be made in foreclosures!  The invisible hand may be picking your pocket–but have no fear!  Someone will get rich–and they just might toss a dime your way.  

    1. “What does it mean?”

      It means that it is what happens when there is no govt to prevent it.  

      And even then, a Black Market emerges.  Think: War on Drugs.  

      Or perhaps folks will buy their own tanning beds now that the Progressives have placed a sin tax upon tanning salons.  

      1. as opposed to GOP factless talking points, the statement

        “The Free Market has no expiration date”

        provides absolutely 0% value.  What policies are the GOP members proposing?

        1. McConnell, R-Ky., said his party opposes a current bill because it includes a special fund that could be used to (again) bail out failing firms. McConnell said Republicans want a new financial reform bill, but, “the question is, what’s it going to look like?”

          Well, Mr. Minority Leader, how about you and your team propose something?  Seriously, what the hell are the taxpayers footing YOUR bill for?  Myself, I’d like some return on my money, you know–you doing your job and legislating for example.  I’m pretty sure all that high-paid (relative to most of the wage earners in the state you pretend to represent) staff you have at your service can come up with something right?  An idea perhaps other than, in the words of your House counterpart, ‘HELL NO!’?

          What are the GOP solutions?  If you say you favor a solution but refuse to disclose it because you don’t know ‘what’s it going to look like’ why should we vote for your side?  I miss Kentucky sometimes, I’m sure Mitch does too.  Maybe in four years we can send him back to pasture.  

          You, Mr. McConnell are an embarrassment to the Commonwealth and nation.  

    2. DAVID GREGORY:  All right, Congresswoman, before– before we move on, make the case for why, as Ron suggests, the Republican Party is on the right side of this economic debate in this election year.

      REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN: Thereason the Republican Party is on the right side of this economic debate is simply this.  The election is going to be about freedom, and the American People know that being dependent on the federal government for home loans, for your health care, for your education, for your jobs, even for the kind of light bulb that you want to put in the fixture, is not the aspirations of a free people.  And because of that, we are on the right side of this argument.  Everything that we’re doing–

      DAVID GREGORY:   What did– hold on, Congresswoman.

      REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN:  –discussing here effects–

      DAVID GREGORY:  What did freedom get the American People during– that led to the financial collapse?  Is that not a fair question about the limits of– of the free, capitalist system?

      REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN: We know– we know that if you let free markets work, there is no expiration date on the free market.  There is no expiration date on the American economy.  What the American People do not like is the overreach of government–

      DAVID GREGORY:   I’m sorry, Congresswoman, my question was what did the free– what did the free market get us– what did freedom get us in the economic collapse?  You had an absence of government regulation, and you had the free market running wild.  Look what the result was.

      REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN:  And you need– and you need more oversight.  We all agree with that.  And the financial bill that Senator Corker and them are working on would lead to more oversight.  The Goldman charges that have come forward now, David, they have come forward under existing SEC rules.  More oversight, which I have always been a proponent of–

      http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36…

      I turned to my wife and said “what the hell does that mean?”

      This woman’s an idiot!

  2. we should have learned that repetition is the key to political persuasion.  And those scintillating Republican lines need to be turned back on them.  

    How about this: Every time you hear a Repub lie about a public policy issue (health insurance reform, financial reform, etc), yell out as loud as you can, “You lie!”  Don’t word it any other way, and most importantly, don’t make the usual Dem mistake of soft-pedaling, toning down the language, and trying to be nice.

    Remember, “You lie!” every time you hear a Repub lie.  Could be an interesting experiment.

      1. “There you go again” is an attention getter that allows you to then seg into  your counter-message in as simple and concise a form as possible.

        Looks like Dems may finally be listening to a Luntz or two of their own.  This from Pelosi addressing California Dems is just the kind of thing Dems have been needing for a couple of decades:

        “Democrats are for protecting the peoples’ interest; Republicans are protecting the special interests. Democrats are protecting consumers and small businesses on Main Street; Republicans are protecting big banks on Wall Street,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told more than 1,000 cheering delegates inside the Los Angeles Convention Center.

        “That is our fight,” Pelosi said.

        That’s exactly the right way to frame it.

  3. To bring this to the floor. This is something the Rs seem like they want a fight on. McConnell is yelling on the floor and all.

    The Dems should play chicken with this bill.

    Republican leadership knows this is not an issue they can afford to start a full-fledged media war about, at least like they did with health care.  

    1. We keep talking about this issue as though if we just keep playing fair, the media referees will eventually blow the whistle on lying Republicans.

      There is no lie Republicans can’t get away with, as long as the media feels like its job is to present both sides of any political story (the true side and the Luntz side). It’s very biased to call something “true,” you know.

      Of course, a world where the media talked about what’s in the bill from different perspectives would be fantasyland. In this world, even that’s too much to hope for. Instead we dance around what’s actually in any bill and just make up predictions about who’s going to win the fight later on, which is just as useful and thoughtful as predicting the point spread of a football game.

      I can’t remember the last substantive debate I’ve had on anything with a conservative, except my brother. I suppose when there’s no penalty for lying, there’s no reason to take any debate seriously.

          1. He did challenge him (gently) on McCain’s maverick-amnesia.  But a couple minutes before that McCain launched into an anti-Obama rant about how federal income “taxes have increased already,” and will increase more – Wallace made no effort to challenge his statement that taxes have already increased under Obama.

  4.  I don’t think they are ready to go to battle on this. Financial reform needs to get done and I bet the polling would be wildly in favor, and not just on individual components.

    What are they going to do, filibuster financial regulatory reform? Go for it, I say.

    And the Rs may pull this “slavery is freedom” BS on every issue, it seems. But its nothing new.  

    1. Every Republican Senator threatened to filibuster the bill.

      Get ready for teabaggers to say we can’t regulate financial institutions, because the next step is the government eating our babies.

      I suppose eventually Republicans may feel the need to reconcile their two completely contradictory arguments against this bill, so we’ll see Limbaugh and Beck claiming that the big banks never would have been in trouble if the government hadn’t first bailed them out.  

      1. not Republican.  And I didn’t make up the debt clock, dumb-dumb.

        Thanks for following my advice and “moving along”.  Nice blinders, btw.

        1. ..whenever Conservatives are in a forum where they have to interact with their liberal counterparts, and they get hit with a point they don’t want to deal with, they have a set formula:

          1) Refute the point without any sort of factual backup (“What we’re really talking about here is Chimpanzees on Tricycles smoking Egyptian Tar Heroin.”

          2) Insult the opposing speaker (‘I’m afraid that SPX151 is just another liberal blogger operating on an agenda provider by George Soros.”)

          3) Change the Subject (“The fact of the matter is the really important part of financial reform is the National Debt.”)

          Classic M.O. there Mr Russo….what the fuck does the National Debt Clock have to do with reforming the financial abuses of Wall Street?

          Maybe if we prevent these pin-striped assclowns from playing roulette with investors money, AND prevent them from playing the rules to avoid paying any income tax, we might be able to bring the National debt down…

          1. Is this what we want capitalism to look like:

            Abercrombie & Fitch has been criticized as a company that has refused to heed economic indicators and, as a result, plummeted in sales. The blame is placed on its chairman and CEO Mike Jeffries, who in 2008 received $71.8 million in total compensation – making him one of the five Highest Paid Worst Performers of 2008 by the Corporate Library. Now, it is alleged that he will receive $4 million to simply stop unlimited use of the corporate jet and travel budget. In 2008, his travel budget cost the company $1.3 million.

            Rugged individualism at it’s finest. It’s what we send our soldiers to their deaths to protect.

          2. and don’t forget the special tax treatment these hedge fund mangers get in having their income treated as long term capital gains rather than ordinary income (which is what it really is) saving them and costing the US Treasury many billions of dollars every year.

  6. “Death panels” – while an ugly, typically cynical Palin lie – resonated more with people, at least for a while, because it fit into the typical “Dems like bureaucracy, Reps want personal freedom” GOP mantra. (Although that’s a lie as well.)

    However, the idea that Republicans are more opposed to “big banks” than Democrats is ludicrous.

    Plus, it’ll be easier to disprove the claim.

    Republicans are going to have to come up with something else to try to block financial reform. They weren’t able to block health care reform, and this’ll be a lot easier to pass.

  7. So Obama offers to remove this provision, and they’re still complaining.

    http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…

    The statements from Brown and McConnell came two days after the administration signaled it would push Democrats to drop a provision in their bill that Republicans broadly oppose: a $50 billion liquidation fund, raised by imposing a tax on major financial institutions, that would be used to cover the government’s costs in the event that it has to liquidate an insolvent firm.

    On Friday, after news of the administration’s position broke, McConnell made clear he wanted to see more. “I appreciate the Obama administration’s recognition of the need to substantively improve this bill,” reads McConnell’s official statement. “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.'”

    As Dodd says, this was their idea to begin with.

    And it’s a good thing the White House learned so well from the health care debate that giving Republicans whatever they want is really effective in getting them to vote for his proposals.

    Here, let’s just skip to the end this time.

    From Agence-Future-Presse:

    In a move aimed at peeling off a single Republican to end a Republican filibuster, President Obama today proposed eliminating the last remaining paragraph of his signature financial reform legislation.

    “We’re hoping that by proposing legislation that says literally nothing, it will signify to Republicans our willingness to compromise. Please can we have a vote on this? It’s just a white sheet of paper! There’s nothing you could possibly object to there!”

    Senate Republicans on Friday were still unsatisfied. “I think I see a smudge on this paper,” Mitch McConnell said. “The bankers I’ve been meeting with nonstop for the past three months say this smudge might accidentally help them make more profits, and they begged me not to let that happen under any circumstances.”

    Meanwhile prominent Republicans objected to the President’s tone. “Rly? a WHITE SHEET Barak? Thot we put raycism behind us LOL,” wrote Sarah Palin in a tweet that we apparently have to report on for some reason.

      1. not worth the press she gets. She is vapor. A waste of perfectly good skin. And MSNBC got it exactly right”'”PAYlin…she is in this for the money. A huckster, grifter…and the small minds of the conservatives and the true believers just go right along. Sad, really.  

        1. when in reality, increasing amounts of their hard-earned money is going to pay for Palin appearances.  Just got confused followin’ the money trail.

    2. Barak seems to not have learned a damned thing about the Republicans and their attitudes about governing these days. Put the legislation up for a vote, and let’s see who actually votes for not regulating Wall Street. The whole bailout thing is, of course, self created cover for voting for Wall Street.

      It is going to be even uglier than the Obama campaign…God help us all.

      1. Do you remember Bush and Bernanke on the WH lawn warning of the impending collapse of the financial institutions? Do you remember the eight years of Bush deregulation? Have you not a clue?

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