No Blank Check to Bail Out Wall Street!

Call me fiscally conservative, but I just don't like the idea of giving $700 billion in taxpayer money to the Secretary of the Treasury with zero accountability. I have contacted my Senators to let them know how I feel and to encourage them not to approve this proposal. I got this sample letter from JRandomPoster on DKos:

September 22, 2008

Dear Senators Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint:

I am writing in very deep concern over the Wall Street Bailout Act, currently entitled as "LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS".

This is, to say the least, a deeply troubling bill. Specifically:

1. There is little to no oversight. Furthermore, section 8 ensures that any oversight is crippled from the start, as it states, and I quote from the text of the act: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

2. The floating amount controlled by the Secretary of the Treasury is $700B is effectively a blank check as there is no hard limit.

3. It appears that the power of the Secretary extends to no-bid contracts.

4. It provides no restoration of the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act, modernized or otherwise, that were stripped away by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. It does absolutely nothing to change the fundamental problems that led us to this situation.

I strongly urge you to vote against this bill. I know that we need to prevent the complete disintegration of our economy, but this is not the solution. This is a blank check to the executive; it is the abdication of the financial powers granted to the legislative branch in Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution.

Sincerely,

***

SC Residents: Find your US Representative here and contact their office too.

Everybody Else: Find your Congressmen here.

UPDATE: Apparently Senator DeMint got my letter and agreed with me (heh):

“After reviewing the administration's proposed bailout plan, I believe it is completely unacceptable,” DeMint, chairman of the Senate Republican Steering Committee, said in the statement. “This plan does nothing to address the misguided government policies that created this mess and it could make matters much worse by socializing an entire sector of the U.S. economy.”

“This plan fails to oversee or regulate the government failures that led to this crisis,” DeMint added.