When Wall Street catches a cold, Main Street gets pneumonia. When banks stop lending to each other and private equity firms hold tight to their cash, households and small-business owners cannot borrow money. This is not a left-right crisis, and it does not have a "conservative versus liberal" solution.
Wall Street is anticipating some relief from the taxpayers, and it will come at a price: more oversight, accountability, transparency and regulation. We taxpayers must demand lawmakers and those now responsible for passing out the borrowed cash protect our $700 billion investment in rescuing institutions that hold our money and collective wealth.
Meanwhile, we are told Main Street must wait a little longer before attention is paid to those holding mortgages they can no longer afford. Main Street must wait until the markets are flowing again with cash. Main Street must be patient as this downturn bottoms out and a new economic cure takes hold. Tell that to small-business owners who must meet payroll next week. Help is on the way.
Yeah, right.
But there is something sour about this deal. Sour in terms of the tone some are making in pointing fingers at who is to blame. Warning: Let's not worsen the crisis by allowing hardcore partisans to use it to score political points with their base. Not this time!
We the people awoke from the American Dream to a nightmare of two meltdowns: financial and leadership. Suffering the aftershocks of the frozen credit markets, people not only worry they won't have the money to put something under the Christmas tree; they worry they won't have a house in which to place the tree. Meanwhile, as one wag noted, politicians are "living up to their dismal ratings in the polls."
Who among us truly believes that Wall Street will follow through and loosen up the credit market that might help stabilize our economy in the short term? I don't.
Do you really believe this bailout will solve our economic problems as the country heads straight into a recession? I don't.
Will this bailout help ordinary Americans of every background keep ownership of their homes? Don't bet on it just now.
We should know that the bitter pill we're being forced to swallow is just the beginning. More and perhaps even greater sacrifices will have to be made, and I hope lawmakers show some compassion for those in danger of losing their homes, jobs, retirement income and health care. The days of trickle-down economics and all the underlying assumptions about how to achieve middle-class prosperity are now off the table.
We need a new plan to help grow our economy, Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain. Can one of you give us some real truth before Election Day? I hope so.
Trickle-down economics should be put to rest along with those who are now scapegoating innocent (yes, I used the word innocent and not ignorant) homeowners who actually believed they could afford to live in a house and not rent. The comments from some conservatives are not just untruthful; they're incendiary, giving right-wing partisans a target at which to vent their anger.
This hateful and mean-spirited attempt to blame people for buying homes they thought they could finally afford is ludicrous. These transactions were designed to convince folks that they could afford it. Expectations were built into these mortgages and, given the ever-booming real estate market and buyers' faith in their own futures, sellers pushed the idea that these expectations were reasonable and affordable.
These innocent buyers bought that story, as did investors who purchased the mortgage-backed securities. Yet I don't see conservative pundit and author Ann Coulter & Co. raising a pointed finger against the lenders, many of whom didn't even have a proper license to sell these mortgages in the first place. The hate-mongers needed to stretch back three decades in order to overlook the last eight years. It seems to me that a whole lot of people, including banks and investors, bought a bunch of stuff they could not afford. This business of blaming the guy at the bottom of this Ponzi scheme is criminal.
The bottom line is that many organizations like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) have been fighting against subprime and predatory mortgage-lending practices ever since these toxic products first started appearing in our neighborhoods a decade ago. Had regulators and legislators listened to ACORN and many civil-rights organizations, there wouldn't have been a crisis.
Once the crisis began, many of these organizations adopted financial literacy programs to help prevent foreclosures, and some of their efforts helped to save thousands of families from losing their homes. If Coulter and others want to know about ACORN, they can give her a list of families to interview whose homes they helped save.
Some conservative congressmen denounced ACORN in their floor speeches, arguing that if left-wingers get their hands on the Housing Trust Fund money, they will use it to fraudulently register poor minority citizens to vote so that they can elect Obama. Never mind that any bailout profit likely to go to the trust fund is very hypothetical, or that the trust will award funds on a competitive basis to groups with a demonstrated track record of developing affordable housing, or that ACORN itself does not develop affordable housing and therefore won't be applying for or receiving funds from the trust.
This is truly a silly season in politics. Folks, do not buy the steaming, stinking heap of lies that left-wing organizations are trying to steal your cash. There is plenty of blame to go around about who caused all the mess on Wall Street that is coming soon to Main Street. The last thing we need as our country begins to get itself back on track is a bunch of mean-spirited ideologues from the left or the right trying to divide us by creating false issues.
It's time we work together to solve America's problems before it's too late.
Donna Brazile is a political commentator on CNN, ABC and NPR; contributing columnist to Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill; and former campaign manager for Al Gore.
