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Teague wants to end financial-sector bailout
U.S. Rep. Harry Teague (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
U.S. Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M., introduced legislation today that would put an end to the financial-sector bailout approved by Congress and former President George W. Bush last year.
The bill would also use the leftover funding from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) – currently some $200 billion – to pay down the national debt, and it would lower the United States’ debt ceiling by that amount.
“I opposed the bailout because it did more for Wall Street than it did for Main Street,” Teague said in a news release. “We need to end TARP. And rather than allow for any remaining TARP funds to be used as a slush fund for other programs, we need use that money to pay down our national debt.”
“TARP was deeply flawed from the beginning. While most families in my district were tightening their belts, the bailed-out financial institutions were awarding executive bonuses,” he said. “This flawed program still has $200 billion of taxpayer money available, and it’s time to pull the plug so the American taxpayer isn’t further burdened.”
Teague’s bill is called the TARP Sunset and Fiscal Responsibility Act. It’s cosponsored by Reps. Betsy Markey, Suzanne Kosmas, Larry Kissell and Debbie Halvorson.
During a discussion earlier this year about whether Congress should stop the second of two $350 billion infusions of cash authorized by TARP, President Barack Obama said he would veto any attempt to cut off the funding.
While it’s true that Teague said last year, as a candidate for Congress, that he would have voted against TARP because it didn’t include enough guarantees for taxpayers, his spokesman also said, before the actual bill was unveiled, that the government “does need to infuse some money into some of these investment institutions to prevent a total meltdown of the financial markets and our economy.”
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jivaro99, There is NOTHING LEFT WING ABOUT TARP. That was a pure de Bush movida. Actually,
the DEMOCRATIC Representative Harry Teague is leaning LEFT by trying to rein in the socially unjust TARP. Just because you agree with it does not make it “leaning a little to the right”.
Is Teague trying to lean a little to the right? Could it be he is running scared of Pearce and trying to persuade the voters that he can be a middle of the road candidate? What about the Cap and Trade he foolishly voted for? What about the damage he has done so far?
If he is not careful in his leaning to the right he will lose some of the hard line liberals and may even topple over if he leans too far. The best thing that could happen to this state is for Pearce to reclaim hi seat and Teague to take a long overdue sabbatical to some place besides New Mexico.
I hope Teague is successful with this. I listened to one lady this past weekend who was describing the people working at Wall Street. The way she described the people and their attitude towards the United States and the United States economy reminded me of the banker “things” described in the Harry Potter books. Their entire goal was simply to make more and more money even if the ship holding the money sinks and goes under. They not only do not care about the state of the ship they think that we (other citizens of these United States) are crazy to believe they have any responsibility toward the society. We constantly hear politicians and citizens across this country chide the common person for entering into contracts without considering their financial resources. Yet, we only hear the common people chide Wall Street for doing the same thing. If Wall Street had considered their financial resources we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in today. I applaud Teague for his stand.
I got to agree with Mr. Teague on this one.
You Go Harry! Now, if you could just undo the Porkulus spending bill Obama did, and undo the auto bailouts, and undo the carbon tax bill you voted for, and stop the destruction of our health insurance options with higher costs and taxes, you might get enough votes to win, who knows?