Kucinich: Wall Street bailout bill "the dumbest thing I've ever seen"
Friday, 03 October 2008
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who voted against today's bailout bill in the U.S. House, tells Fox News that a smarter approach would have been to directly help homeowners facing foreclosure instead of giving the Treasury Secretary the power "to pick winners and losers."
MARTHA MACCALLUM: Let's go to Dennis Kucinich, who is standing by on Capitol Hill, as well. He was never in favor of this bill. Congressman, welcome. Good evening. Thanks for being here.
DENNIS: Thank you.
MARTHA: Are you concerned that this bill is going to leave us in worse shape than we might have been otherwise?
DENNIS: Yes, because it didn't solve the problem, and I think that's probably why Wall Street is responding the way that it is. What we should have been doing is addressing the massive foreclosure problem that exists at the grass roots of the United States and do something about that.
I advocated that we get the Treasury or another government agency to buy controlling interest in mortgage-backed securities and into workouts for the millions of Americans who are in danger of losing their homes. That would have helped to prime the pump of the economy, money starts percolating upwards; that and a jobs program -- we have 760,000 people out of work -- that's the kind of thing that gets America going again.
What we passed...wrong! And the market seems to be agreeing that it's wrong.
MARTHA: So what do we do now? What are you going to do now to try to fight to make sure that this program works as best as humanly possible?
DENNIS: Hah! Well, you know, that's a big order. I mean, you've got the Treasury Secretary, basically, who's going to pick winners and losers. From a capitalistic standpoint, this thing is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. It actually destroys the idea of a free market economy. The Treasury Secretary can pick winners and losers, we can reward speculators, bail out speculators from all over the globe -- come on, now, America needs real help now. And we can get the money moving at the grass roots by focusing on housing and employment. That will help us. We should be able to get a bipartisan consensus on that.
MARTHA: All right. Congressman Kucinich, thank you very much for joining us this evening.
DENNIS: Always appreciative; thank you very much. Thank you.
