Posted on 09/09/2010 5:06:03 AM PDT by Born Conservative
U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski defended the 2008 government bailout of failing financial giants as painfully necessary to prevent a complete collapse of the world economy and U.S. political system.
Kanjorski, D-11, in a speech Tuesday at Pocono Medical Center sponsored by the Greater Pocono Chamber of Commerce, gave a spirited defense of the bailout and this year's passage of financial regulatory reform he said will prevent future bailouts.
Both are emerging as major campaign issues this fall, with Kanjorski's Republican opponent Lou Barletta calling the bailout a waste of taxpayer money at the expense of ordinary people.
Kanjorski, a Democrat who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, voted for the bailout and authored some of the regulatory reform measures.
Economists said in September 2008 that the economy would collapse if AIG — the insurance company that guaranteed $2.8 trillion in mortgage-backed securities without any collateral — was allowed to go bankrupt, Kanjorski said.
"They were the key to collapsing every financial system in the world," Kanjorski said. "They were making money hand over fist until the beginning of the collapse."
A financial collapse would have been worse than the 1930s Depression, he said. Nobel Prize winners warned lawmakers the economy would regress by centuries and law enforcement officials said personal liberties couldn't be guaranteed, he added.
"They basically said we couldn't provide for law and order," Kanjorski said. "If we didn't do what we did we wouldn't be in the United States today. It would have brought the entire government down."
There will be a political judgment of the government's response this November, but he predicted history will judge their actions as correct.
The regulatory reform package encompasses eight bills, including predatory home loan reform Kanjorski said he first tried to pass following a Poconos hearing in 2004 on Monroe County's massive foreclosure rate. Subprime lending resulted in people being given mortgages they couldn't afford, for homes that weren't worth the sales' price due to collusion among sellers and appraisers who determined the home's local market value.
"We had a mini-picture of what was about to happen in two or three years across the country and it did," Kanjorski said. "Hopefully, appraisers will never again line up with developers, line up with banks."
Kanjorski noted his "too big to fail" amendment that allows government regulators to dismantle multi-faceted corporations whose collapse threaten the entire economy, rather than prop them up with taxpayer money.
"What we have to do is make sure the regulators are willing to use that power and do use it," he said. "It's my estimation they would only have to do it once."
Paul Kanjorski 2010 Election Cycle
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Kanjorski doesn’t apologize to anyone
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Kanjorski’s Cornerstone Scandal
Ping
Keep singing that tune Paul. All the way to defeat in November...
You Lie! You Cheat! You Steal! In November, You Unemployed!
Thanks for saving the world, Paul !
Mr. Kanjorski, has overdosed on the Kool-aid.
Hopefully those who vote in his state haven’t.
A complete collapse of the US political system might not be such a bad thing ...
It would have collapsed without me eating a cheeseburger too.
Now let’s see us both try to prove it.
No way am I going to listen to a politician on economic matters. When they give their money away instead of mine...well, perhaps then...
Paul, you typical political moron, the economy will be just fine if you and your parasitic and pathetic colleagues would just quit and move on to another line of work (actually, I guess I mean ‘move on to an actual line of work’). The country doesn’t need you, or any of your buddies in Congress to ‘save us’. We need to be saved from you and the predictable mess you make of things. We would be much better off if we chose people to serve in Congress by a coin flip.
So what they are saying is that the gubermint would have used it as an opportunity to punish us and oppress us even more than what they already do...
The only problem we have is duffasses like this spending our money and creating the situations which then need fixing..
Its like Duh_bummers last proposal, he says the repubs would have us borrow more money to give the rich a tax break, no the reality is the people of the USA would like you to stop spending money which then needs to be borrowed at all, close your government expansion, get your filthy hands off our wallets that mismanages everything they touch anyway, how about no taxes at all, tell the government to pound sand and bring our country back to some sort of fiscal reality..you contorted bag of lies and deception...
Better dead then Red!
Go Lou ping
Kanjorski lies. This thread is wrong on so many counts that it would take a muli-page WSJ op-ed. Major lies are:
1. Bank run would have destroyed the economy, There has never been any explanation for who was involved in this (Soros?)
2. Government use of force to break up companies would need to be done “only once”. True on its surface, but there would no economy left.
3. “We had a mini-picture of what was about to happen in two or three years across the country and it did,” And you did what to correct the problem?
Oh, I suspect we have yet to discover just how far the "stimulus" has gone towards preserving the "U.S. political system". Some ugly revelations lie ahead.
It would have been the best thing, that is why they fought against it so hard.
This speaks volumes about how flaming STUPID the voters are in his district. He appears to represent their views since he’s continually reelected.
How stupid can anyone be?
If bailouts help, then why not 100 times the original bailout? 1000 times? a million times?
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