Here’s something interesting to note from the raft of bills introduced when Congress returned briefly after the election: A bunch of ‘em were about the financial services bailout. Mostly in the Senate, but with a few examples in the House, bills were introduced to manage how the bailout would work.

Here’s the problem with that: The bailout bill already passed. It’s not in Congress’ control any more. Any bills introduced to affect the bailout amount to trying to lick up spilled milk. Congress is supposed to debate legislation before it passes, not after.

So let’s take a look at the bills and the Senators and Members of Congress who introduced them.

It’s most interesting to see who voted for the bailout, but came up with ideas for how it should work later. That amounts to a confession of voting for a bill without thinking it all the way through, a big no-no when $700 billion in taxpayer money is on the line.

Here are the post-bailout bailout bills, with their sponsors:

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It’s probably a little late in the day here on Thanksgiving for you to use this recipe - but it’s darn good, mainly because of the cream cheese (which is also why they call it the “sinful” mashed potatoes recipe.)

“Sinful” Mashed Potatoes
(serves 6-8)
2 C hot or cold mashed potatoes
1 large package (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temp
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 eggs
2 T flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 can 3.5 oz. French-fried onion rings

Put potatoes in a large mixing bowl. Add cream cheese, chopped onion, egg, and flour. Beat at medium speed until ingredients are blended, then high speed until light and fluffy. Taste, add salt and pepper if needed.

Spoon into greased 9-inch-square baking dish. Distribute canned onions evenly over the top. Bake, uncovered, 300 degrees, for about 35 minutes.

Delicious! But wait! Before we eat, let’s think briefly of others less fortunate than ourselves.

Members of Congress do so on your behalf, and there are several bills in Congress intended to alleviate hunger. Would they succeed? Finding solutions to hunger and poverty is obviously more easily said than done.

There’s S. 1172 and its House counterpart, H.R. 1938. Both are called the “Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2007.” The brief legislative summaries of these bills say they would “reduce hunger in the United States.” (Oy. Grand claims like that put these bills in the “and a pony” category.) Basically, the bills would make grants to various anti-hunger organizations and programs.

H.R. 206, the Anti-hunger Empowerment Act of 2007, would reduce red tape in the food stamp program and give grants to nonprofit anti-hunger groups for a “Beyond the Soup Kitchen” pilot program.

S. 3108 and H.R. 6127 are both called the “White House Conference on Food and Nutrition Act.” They would require the president to call a White House Conference on Food and Nutrition. (Well named bills, don’t you think?)

S. 1575 is the FEED Act of 2007. It would give grants to public agencies and nonprofit institutions “to encourage the use of community resources to combat hunger and the root causes of hunger by creating opportunity through food recovery and job training.”

Finally, there’s H.R. 2129, the Feeding America’s Families Act of 2007. It would “strengthen” the Food Stamp Act of 1977 in various ways. Take a look at the wiki article for the bill to see them all.

It may not be that you want to support these programs, but it is a day to be thankful and to think of those who have less bounty than we do.

And do keep in mind the old saying, amended for this day, “Give a man a turkey and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to turkey and you - no, wait . . . teach a man to fish - yeah, that’s it, fish - and you feed him for a lifetime.”

The Drudge Report linked to a very disturbing bailout news story yesterday, claiming that the “U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers” toward rescuing the financial services sector.

That’s about $80,000 per U.S. family, or $25,000 per person (if we’re talking about 2009 expenditures).

Except . . . the story doesn’t explain what kind of outlays these are or where these figures come from.

The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Tapped” is not a financial term of art, of course, and what “data” did Bloomberg compile?

One suspects that this might be loan guarantees of some kind, with the total amount being lent in the $7.7 trillion range, but this does not mean that $7.7 trillion is going to be spent.

It’s all quite fishy.

The “TARP” program in the bailout bill (”Troubled Asset Relief Program”) - this money might well be spent, and I predicted as much when the whole bailout process began - but loan guarantees are a different thing.

Without better reporting, I don’t find the Bloomberg story credible or useful. So relax folks! It may not be tens of thousands spent on your behalf. But it could be. We’ll keep watching . . . .

A cost estimate for the Senate economic stimulus bill has been released. It comes in at a little over $750 in spending per U.S. family. That’s about $240 per person.

The estimate is incomplete. It “does not include potential net costs under title VI, which would require the Secretary of the Treasury to use existing funds for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) [i.e., the bailout] to provide $25 billion in direct loans to automobile manufacturers and component suppliers.”

The bill includes $5.7 billion in unemployment insurance outlays, something of keen interest to followers of the unemployment extension bills, H.R. 6867 and S. 3507.

Here’s the current vote on S. 3689, The Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article for the bill.

Here’s the WashingtonWatch.com email newsletter for the week. Subscribe here.

email newsletter | tell a friend | wiki | about | home | log in On the WashingtonWatch.com Blog Congress is likely to take up an economic stimulus package when it returns for a lame-duck session this week. The American people should get a look at the plan before Congress passes it, says a WashingtonWatch.com blog post titled, “Let’s Get the Actual Terms of the Economic Stimulus Plan.” Featured Items A likely candidate for inclusion in this week’s economic stimulus bill is an extension of unemployment benefits. One of the current bills to extend unemployment benefits is H.R. 6867, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008. No cost estimate is available for the bill. Another candidate for the stimulus package is infrastructure spending. Ideally, it creates jobs over the short run (at the cost of new debt) and enables greater economic productivity over the long run. Infrastructure spending must be well directed, however. In August 2007, Congress spent $250 million to repair the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, at a cost of about $130,000 per foot. This is more than three times the cost-per-foot of Alaska’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” Public Law 110-56 spent a little over $2.50 for every family in the United States. H.R. 6867 The Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 P.L. 110-56 To authorize additional funds for emergency repairs and reconstruction of the Interstate I-35 bridge located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that collapsed on August 1, 2007, to waive the $100,000,000 limitation on emergency relief funds for those emergency repairs and reconstruction, and for other purposes Costs $2.55 per family What People Think The Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 44% For, 56% Against Vote on this Bill P.L. 110-56 37% For, 63% Against Vote on this Bill Displayed below are new, updated, and passed items with their cost or savings per family. New Items S. 3426 The Foreign Service Overseas Pay Equity Act of 2008 Costs $11.03 per family Updated Items S. 1193 The Albuquerque Indian School Act Costs $54.85 per family Passed Items none email newsletter | tell a friend | wiki | about | home | privacy | contact | log in WashingtonWatch.com P.O. Box 77576 Washington, D.C. 20013

Congress returns to work this week to consider an economic stimulus plan. The Senate comes in Monday and the House on Wednesday.

While the broad outlines of that plan can be determined from reading news reports and watching President-Elect Obama’s first weekly address, the details are what matter.

The broad outlines:

- Extension of unemployment benefits. (You can see some vigorous discussion of that here and here.)

- Spending on infrastructure like bridges and roads and schools and such.

- Maybe some kind of bailout for the auto industry. (The Senate is supposed to take it up an auto industry bailout Monday at noon, but the administration has hardened its objections to the $25 billion plan last week.)

- Spending to promote “green tech”?

The rumored tally for all this has been pegged at around $150 billion dollars. That’s about $1,500 per U.S. family in spending, or $490 per person.

Now, ask yourself, would you spend $500 based on “broad outlines”?

“You might get a leather jacket, or maybe a suit, but it could be a new set of tires.” Heck NO!

When the original $700 billion bailout plan came forward, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged to post it online for 24 hours before a vote. The bill failed a vote in the House. Later that week, a bill developed without the same public access passed. It would be a tragedy if the Speaker and others took this as a lesson that they shouldn’t be forthcoming with the public.

Confidence in government will remain at rock-bottom levels until the public has a window onto the laws that are being considered in Congress. The Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate should post the text of the economic stimulus package at least 24 hours before a vote, and preferably 72 hours before a vote.

“I want to see a stimulus package sooner rather than later. If it does not get done in the lame duck session, it will be the first thing I get done as President of the United States.”

So said President-Elect Barack Obama at his first press conference this past week.

Will subsidies for broadband be part of it?

The Telecommunications Industry Association recently urged Congress to include subsidies for broadband in the economic stimulus package. The membership of TIA are telecommunications equipment providers. They argue that subsidies for their products would be good for America.

Oh! - which allows me to mention how a group called BroadbandCensus.com is promoting a Nov. 18 conference on broadband here on this site (more info | register). They have sponsored info on pages like Public Law 110-385, The Broadband Data Improvement Act, and H.R. 3919, The Broadband Census of America Act of 2007, right where people interested in these topics will find it. (Click and check out their info in the right column.)

It’s a brilliant thing - sponsoring info here on WashingtonWatch.com. Here’s how to do it.

Anyway, enough fawning over a sponsor . . . .

The last stimulus package was passed in February and included rebate checks to taxpayers, returning about $540 per family on average. But it may not have been all that stimulative. Martin Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that it was a flop, with only 15% of the stimulus money going to new spending. (The rest went to savings or paying down debt - not bad things, but they came at the expense of driving up national debt.)

If an economic stimulus bill happens, maybe spending on infrastructure is better than cash payments out to people. We shall see. More to come, of course.

There were a lot of good reactions to yesterday’s post about candidates for federal office with responsibility for at least part of the financial crisis.

We listed House members and Senators who either voted for, or didn’t object to, a law freeing up financial services firms to offer these wagers known as “financial derivatives” without being subject to gambling regulation. The result has been a financial and economic disaster of as yet unknown proportions.

If you reviewed the list carefully, you noted that both Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) stood by and let the law pass in 2000. It went through the Senate on “unanimous consent” and they failed to object. Given their responsibility to know what is on the Senate floor and what it does, it’s fair to find them blameworthy.

In case you’ve been in a coma, McCain is the Republican nominee for president. Biden is the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee. (Neither Barack Obama nor Sarah Palin were serving in the House or Senate when the law passed, so they’re off the hook on this one. Same with independent candidate Ralph Nader.)

But there are some other presidential candidates out there that were around when the table was set for this part of the financial crisis.

Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney are the Libertarian and Green Party candidates for president respectively. They were both serving in the House of Representatives in 2000 — both representing districts in Georgia, in fact — when the vote happened on the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001.

Libertarian candidate Bob Barr voted NO. (Here again is the House vote.)

McKinney did not vote; she was one of 80 members who declined to register an opinion. It’s hard to know whether this was some kind of protest or if lots of Members of Congress were prioritizing Christmas shopping, but in this case it looks good for her. Even if all the non-voters had voted No, the bill still would have passed.

Particularly in the case of Barr, this tells you something about outsiders, and I think it tells you something good. The get-along, go-along types who have made it to the top of the heap in U.S. politics both participated in the creation of the country’s current economic woes. The people who don’t play ball both voted against that. There’s something to be said for not getting along.

A third-party vote signals to the major parties that you’re dissatisfied with they way they’re doing things. You’ve got reason to be, considering the role of McCain and Biden in precipitating the financial crisis. There’s another thing to consider when you go to the polls next week.

In 2000, Congress passed a law barring states from regulating credit default swaps under their gambling and “bucket shop” laws. This set the stage for the market in “financial derivatives” that are a big part of what is causing the economic meltdown today.

One hundred fifty-five of the Members of Congress who voted for this law are still serving—and they’re up for reelection next week. You might want to take their votes on credit default swaps into account when you go to your polling place.

The Senate passed the bill on “unanimous consent.” Everyone just agreed to let it go through, including 22 Senators who are up for reelection.

Below is a list of the current Members (all of them up for reelection) who voted to let gambling be treated like a financial service, and the Senators up for reelection who allowed the bill to go through.

Click on your state to see if your representatives helped create today’s economic problems: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, or Wyoming. (See all House votes here.)

For some background, give a watch to Sunday night’s very interesting and insightful 60 Minutes piece on credit default swaps and how they played into the financial crisis. Essentially, they’re side bets that allow people to wager on financial outcomes without having to buy assets.

The 60 Minutes story points to a section in H.R. 5660, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. That bill was folded into the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2001, a massive spending bill, passed in haste at the end of the 106th Congress.

(Sound familiar? Congress passed a similar huge spending bill a few weeks ago.)

Now, is it unfair to blame House members and Senators for letting this small provision through in such a large bill? Heck No! They collectively let the annual spending process get out of control. This lead to the gigantic bill with the derivatives gambling provision in it, which is now a cause of our economic collapse. They should be held responsible individually for the results, and hiding from their responsibility in collective shirking will not do.

Recapping, the following list includes House Members still serving who supported the Consolidated Appropriations Act and Senators currently up for reelection who allowed it to pass (plus a couple who voted for it in the House). The bill preempted state gambling regulation on financial derivatives. These folks have responsibility for at least some of the economic mess we’re in today.
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The news on Friday and over the weekend was that the Treasury Department will not announce which banks are getting cash infusions in the next portion of its modified bailout program. The standard line is that Treasury announcements about our “investments” in the financial sector are being restricted because those announcements would label winners and losers. And for some reason that’s bad.

(I said “modified”: Recall that the bailout was supposed to be the purchase of troubled assets from financial institutions. Now, it’s about about buying pieces of the financial institutions themselves. And it may be extended soon to insurance companies - and then automakers!?)

But there’s another interest at stake, beyond this “winners and losers” justification. Remember the pressure Treasury is under from the blogosphere for hiding its payments to financial services providers like New York Mellon Bank? Be confident that this is causing Treasury bureaucrats some discomfort.

By keeping its latest list of investments obscure, Treasury reduces by just a little bit the ability of the average taxpayer to figure out what it’s doing. The result? More freedom of action for the Treasury Department.

In the contest between its own power and the “good government” practice of transparency, a government agency will always choose to enhance its own power. What we’re seeing here is nothing sinister - it’s exactly how you’d expect an agency to act. But hidden government doesn’t need to have sinister motives to cause bad results.