Mike Huckabee, Dennis Kucinich, Jim Inhofe, Andrew Rice, and a Couple of Oklahoma Liberal Bloggers AGREE: Oppose Bailout

http://www.okiefunk.com/node/448

This is an interesting post from an Oklahoma Liberal Blog, OkieFunk, (by: Dr. Kurt Hochenauer - Professor at University of Central Oklahoma) and shows that many liberal Democrats are in agreement with many conservative Republicans in opposing the bailout plan.

Democrats Should Oppose Bailout
Submitted by dochoc on Mon, 2008-09-29 18:01.

House Democrats should unite and defeat the massive $700 billion financial bailout of Wall Street.
Not only does it make sense to refocus the bailout on middle-class taxpayers it would also ensure sweeping Democratic wins in the November elections.
President George Bush and the members of his ruling junta, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, are proposing taxpayers put their money on the line for Wall Street investment firms and banks. This committed money will mean fewer programs for the middle-class in the future. It will almost certainly jeopardize the government programs Social Security and Medicare.
It will also affect state government budgets, as well, because the federal government will have to slash funding to state programs that help the vast majority of Americans.
Those who support the measure, and this includes many leading Democrats, say the measure has safeguards, that Americans are actually buying a stake of these financially insolvent companies. If the companies rebound, then taxpayers could benefit, they argue. Do you actually believe this?
But the bottom line is the people who were wrong about the subprime mortgage crisis and housing bubble are the ones now pushing this radical solution. Why do it so quickly? What are the political bigwigs and investment bankers trying to hide from the public? How will this bailout affect you in years to come? No one can answer that.
Here are some issues and questions raised by Ohio's U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich about the bailout:
The $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, is driven by fear not fact. This is too much money in too a short a time going to too few people while too many questions remain unanswered. Why aren't we having hearings on the plan we have just received? Why aren't we questioning the underlying premise of the need for a bailout with taxpayers' money? Why have we not considered any alternatives other than to give $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren't we asking Wall Street to clean up its own mess? Why aren't we passing new laws to stop the speculation, which triggered this? Why aren't we putting up new regulatory structures to protect investors? How do we even value the $700 billion in toxic assets?
Why aren't we helping homeowners directly with their debt burden? Why aren't we helping American families faced with bankruptcy. Why aren't we reducing debt for Main Street instead of Wall Street? Isn't it time for fundamental change in our debt based monetary system, so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks? Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs? Wall Street is a place of bears and bulls. It is not smart to force taxpayers to dance with bears or to follow closely behind the bulls.
In a press release today, state Sen. Andrew Rice, a Democrat running against U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe in Oklahoma this year, said, "This bill gives too much away to the people who created these problems without guaranteeing that it won't happen again. Any bill would need to require much tougher consequences for Wall Street in order to earn my support."
That is a good stance for Democrats, though I would go further and suggest party leaders completely shred the Bush plan and start over. First, we should implement a bailout for the middle class, then we can worry about Wall Street. We should work from the bottom up, not the top down.
The House is supposed to vote on the measure today. Watch as leading national Democrats capitulate one-by-one to Bush’s last bit of thievery and then actually try to take credit for it.
Public opinion is against the bailout. Democrats should seize the day and create a bailout plan that forces many Wall Street investment firms to face the consequences of their own reckless decisions and greed as it helps ordinary Americans keep their homes. Democrats are risking the viability of their party if they go along with the Bush plan.