Steve Burns: Stop the Bailout

In her book Shock Doctrine, journalist Naomi Klein explains how those in power use crises - whether economic or military - to suspend the normal democratic process and push through policies that they could never get in "normal" times. It's a warning we should all heed today, as the Bush administration rushes to push through a bailout of investment banks that made bad investments in mortgage-backed securities.

It's a routine the Bush-Cheney (or is it Cheney-Bush?) administration knows well. While most Americans saw the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as an unprecedented tragedy, Dick Cheney saw a tremendous opportunity for a massive expansion of executive power. Some of that power-grab went on behind closed doors, but when Congressional approval was needed, Congress acted as a virtual rubber-stamp. In the Senate, only Wisconsin's Russ Feingold voted against the Patriot Act.

And, when genuine crises couldn't be found, the Bush administration was adept at creating phony crises. In the Fall of 2002, we were told that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction was too urgent to allow any delay in action. The government must act, we were told, and it must act now. As usual, Congress complied, and handed Bush the authority he needed to take us into a war that cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars.

This history must be foremost in our minds as we consider the Bush administration's demand for $700 billion of our money, along with the right to spend that money with no Congressional oversight at all. Predictably, Democratic leaders in Congress seem eager to comply, and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi has promised the Bush administration a vote on the bill before Congress goes on recess at the end of the week.

If the United States were a functioning democracy we would expect Congress to suspend its recess and hold full public hearings to drag the CEO's of every one of these investment banks up to Capitol hill to explain their reckless investment decisions. Government regulators would be called too, to explain why they looked the other way while this rickety financial house of cards was constructed. Members of Congress would be also called before the cameras to explain their 1999 vote to repeal the Glass-Steagall act. Alongside them, sweating and fidgeting before the hot lights, we would see the main proponents of that disastrous decision to de-regulate the financial industry: former President Clinton and then-Treasury-secretary Robert Rubin, now the main economic adviser to Barack Obama.

There is much that could be said about the financial crisis and the Bush administration's proposed bailout. Progressive economist Dean Baker lays out a response that protects us from economic collapse without rewarding corporate criminals. But the first thing that must be said in response to the Bush plan is "No!" If we can't rouse ourselves to say at least that much to our representatives in Congress, then our country will head further towards bankruptcy - and not just economic bankruptcy, but bankruptcy of the very idea of democratic governance. The "experts" will be in charge, and the Congressional vote that may take place this week will be a mere formality.

In the documentary film Body of War, we follow the story of Tomas Young, an Iraq war veteran paralyzed from the chest down by a sniper's bullet. The filmmakers cut back and forth between Tomas, struggling to live with his disability, and the Congressional debate and vote that sent Tomas and hundreds of thousands of other young Americans into that war. As the "yes" votes roll in, the camera cuts to West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd. His hands shaking, the 87 year old Senator holds his pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution aloft, and cries, "Stop! Don't rush this through!" That's pretty good advice for us to listen to today.