LaTourette says no to measure

By MARGIE TRAX PAGE - Staff Writer - mtrax@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

September 29, 2008 10:57 pm

— Some price tags are just too big, U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette said Monday.
LaTourette, R-Bainbridge Township, voted against the proposed $700 billion Wall Street economic rescue package Monday. He has hope for the package’s second iteration, though.
The U.S. House of Representatives nixed the measure 205-228, an action that sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average into a 777-point plunge, the Associated Press reports.
Credit markets, whose turmoil helped feed the stock market’s angst, froze up further amid the growing belief that the country is headed into a spreading credit and economic crisis, the Associated Press reports.
LaTourette said he couldn’t place the burden of Wall Street’s mistakes onto the back’s taxpayers.
“The people who made the mess should clean up the mess,” he said.
LaTourette said the bill improved in subsequent drafts, as it curbs executive pay, provides greater oversight and has Wall Street pay insurance premiums. But that isn’t enough, he said.
“The bill lacked market reforms that could have dropped the price tag from $700 billion to $100 billion,” he said. “We raised the bar and improved the bill, but it’s still a $700 billion bailout, and the fundamentals are largely the same.”
Democratic congressional candidate Bill O’Neill said Congress must demand accountability and transparency over the transactions that caused the meltdown and said corporate executive bailout recipients should be banned from making future political campaign contributions.
“I’d also like to see a requirement that federal candidates in the 2008 cycle return political contributions to officers and representatives of these corporations,” O’Neill said.
O’Neill calls for accountability, from Washington, D.C.’s Pennsylvania Avenue to Wall Street.
“Americans deserve accountability before Wall Street gets one dime,” O’Neill said. “We deserve a host of assurances that what has taken place on Wall Street will never be allowed to happen again.”
LaTourette said the bill also should have permitted U.S companies doing business overseas to pour private capital into the market and absorb the toxic mortgage-backed securities. He said those companies should have been granted a tax break if they agreed to hold the assets for several years.
Punitive market-to-market accounting rules have caused bank assets to tumble by $500 billion and have made $5 trillion unavailable for credit, LaTourette said.
“Those rules should have been relaxed in the bill to immediately free up credit,” he said.
LaTourette also believes the bill should have doubled the amount of deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., from $100,000 to $200,000.
“I’d rather have rich guys in three-piece suits buy up this bad mortgage debt, and get a tax break for doing so, than have taxpayers foot the bill,” he said.
O’Neill agrees.
“I find it unacceptable that Congress plans to write a blank check to Wall Street before standing up for homeowners in northeast Ohio,” O’Neill said. “It is time Congress started doing its job … (overseeing) … the banking, insurance and real-estate industries.”