A Progressive Plan To Rescue Americans, Not To Bailout Wall Street

A group of progressively-minded Democrats are sick of letting Republicans and Wall Street get their way by setting the debate over a bailout for the wealthy. This afternoon the Congressional Progressive Caucus is talking about helping Americans with oversight for Wall Street and real relief for everyone else that has suffered from the greed of the financial industry over the last few years. The press conference is going on live from Capitol Hill right now.

Here is their initial statement:

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR-04), an outspoken critic of the Bush/Paulson bailout, along with Rep. Kaptur (OH-09), Rep. Scott (VA-03), Rep. Cummings (MD-07), Rep. Doggett (TX-25), Rep. Holt (NJ-12), Rep. Edwards (MD-04) and Rep. Hirono (HI-02), will introduce legislation today to address the failures in the financial markets. DeFazio believes that the Paulson/Bush proposal is based on a flawed premise: if the American taxpayers spend $700 billion to buy Wall Street's toxic assets - a plan pundits are calling "trash for cash" - it will create liquidity in our financial markets and will somehow trickle-down to Main Street.

DeFazio's plan is not in any way based on the Paulson/Bush plan. Instead of throwing taxpayer dollars at the program and crossing our fingers that the plan work, the measure will direct the Administration to take five simple steps, suggested by noted economist and former head of the FDIC, William Isaac, to re-regulate the markets and move America towards a healthy financial future.

The legislation will be available at the press conference.

The media, if they do their job right will disperse the information given out by the Progressive Caucus so that the nation can talk about a new way, a better way to help all of us and not just the wealthy few. This is what America wants to hear, not Bush, Paulson and McCain's vision of socialist corporatism.