Posted by
Always To The Right on Friday, September 26, 2008 10:54:57 AM
House Republicans refused to support the Henry Paulson/Chris Dodd compromise bailout plan yesterday afternoon, even after the New York Times
reported that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson got down on one knee to
beg Nancy Pelosi to compromise. One of the sticking points, as Senator Lindsey Graham explained
later, wasn’t a lack of begging but a poison pill that would push
20% of all profits
from the bailout into the Housing Trust Fund — a boondoggle that
Democrats in Congress has used to fund political-action groups like
ACORN and the National Council of La Raza
Graham told Greta van Susteren that Democrats had their own priorities, and it wasn’t bailing out the financial sector:
And this deal that’s on the table now is not a very good
deal. Twenty percent of the money that should go to retire debt that
will be created to solve this problem winds up in a housing
organization called ACORN that is an absolute ill-run enterprise, and I
can’t believe we would take money away from debt retirement to put it
in a housing program that doesn’t work.
Here’s the relevant part of the Dodd proposal:
TRANSFER OF A PERCENTAGE OF PROFITS.
- DEPOSITS.Not less than 20 percent of any profit realized on the
sale of each troubled asset purchased under this Act shall be deposited
as provided in paragraph (2).
- USE OF DEPOSITS.Of the amount referred to in paragraph (1)
- 65 percent shall be deposited into the Housing Trust Fund
established under section 1338 of the Federal Housing Enterprises
Regulatory Reform Act of 1992 (12 U.S.C. 4568); and
- 35 percent shall be deposited into the Capital Magnet Fund established under section 1339 of that Act (12 U.S.C. 4569).
REMAINDER DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY.All amounts remaining after
payments under paragraph (1) shall be paid into the General Fund of the
Treasury for reduction of the public debt.
Profits?
Once again, the Democrats want to set up a self-funding mechanism, this
time by exploiting a severe financial crisis. Despicable.