SUBTERFUGE AND THE GOLDEN RULE

By Robert P. Bomboy

JUNE 18, 2017

            Subterfuge! While everybody in the world has been focused on what Trump said or didn't say. And while the same everybodies have been listening to find out what Comey knew or didn't know, the big boys in Congress have been busy as fleas in a frying pan.

            It's been a drama, a three-ring circus that we've never seen or suspected before, and the pundits, the talking heads, have been electric to say there's no other show in the world right now; nothing really important, except this show. Congress hasn't been doing anything . . .  you savvy?

            It's made a powerful smokescreen. In a previous column I said the Senate was growing mold, which always grows best in the dark. The House of Representatives has been busy too.

            While no one was watching, House Republicans tore the insides out of the rules enacted after the Great Recession - when the banks almost went bust, made life savings worthless, and foreclosed on nine million American homeowners.

            Subterfuge? Would you laugh or cry if I told you that this awful Republican bill is called the Financial Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs Act. Republican enthusiasts call it the Choice Act, for short. Congresswoman Maxine Waters has a bitter and better name for it: the Wrong Choice Act.

The vote to pass the bill, 233 to 186, was all Big Business and no Democrats; only one Republican voted against it, Congressman Walter Jones of North Carolina.

The 2010 law they were gutting was the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That title should tell you something right up front. After the Wall Street crash in 2007-2008 the American people wanted, on a platter, the heads of the financial wizards and big bankers who had caused everything. We were screaming: "Jail them! Jail them!"

The response was more measured. Even so, the Dodd-Frank Act - named for Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, its joint authors in the Senate and the House - was the most sweeping overhaul of our financial regulations since the reforms during and after the Great Depression in the 1930s. It put teeth in federal regulations to strengthen accountability and transparency in our financial system; to end the lax "too big to fail" gimmees that propped up the big banks during the 2007-2008 crash; to protect us taxpayers by ending bank bailouts; and to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices.

The banks and the financial wizards hated it and lobbied night and day against it, until President Trump came along and wiped away consumer-protection regulations of every kind. Among the first of his infamous executive orders, back on February 3, was a blunt directive to order a "review and hold" on the Dodd-Frank Act. The House, while everybody was looking the other way, sucked up to the big-money boys

"Every promise of Dodd-Frank has been broken," crowed Congressman Jeb Hensarling when his bill crawled out of the House. His misbegotten child gives President Trump the power to fire - for any or no reason - the watchdog heads of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and also the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two home-mortgage giants whose lax policies were at the very heart of the 2007-2008 debacle. We've seen how he likes to fire people.

Beyond that, the Hensarling bill gives Congress the budget power to de-fund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau entirely - something President Trump would love to see.

In the Senate things are just as bad. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, has rammed through his repeal of Obamacare without hearings or any opportunity for the public to see his rotten bill or comment on it. Organizations that wanted to testify and oppose the bill were:

·                            American Academy of Pediatrics

·                            American Association of Retired Persons

·                            American College of Physicians

·                            American Hospital Association

·                            American Medical Association

·                            American Nurses Association

·                            Families USA

·                            National Nurses United

·                            National Physicians Alliance

McConnell's goal is to pass his repeal bill before July 4 so that he and his Senate friends will have clear consciences when they go on their summer vacations. How can anybody go to the beach and enjoy themselves if they've just passed a bill that will take away the health insurance of 23 million Americans, putting those families and their children at the risk of illness and death? Health care experts are estimating that, if this terrible bill actually becomes law, in its first year alone 17,000 Americans will die who otherwise would have lived. Can you live with that? I can't.

McConnell and his buddies are millionaires and then some. It's the rich - the top one percent - who want this repeal to pass. Obamacare isn't a freebie. The people who get it pay for it. What they get is the right to have insurance they can pay for.

What the rich don't like is that Obamacare makes their taxes higher. Isn't that too bad? That one percent have millions and billions. The Trump boom in the stock market this spring has put even more millions in their pockets. They have tax cuts coming out the kazoo - most finagle it so they don't pay any taxes. But they want more - always more! Even if it means that little boys and girls will die.

Our Republican senator, Pat Toomey, a millionaire three times over like most of the senators, will vote with Mitch McConnell. Our Democratic senator, Bob Casey, will vote against him. All the Democrats will vote against this abominable Frankenstein of a bill.

It will take only three Republican heroes to stand up with them, possibly from among these seven good people:

·       Lamar Alexander:            Twitter? @SenAlexander  - Email? Google Lamar Alexander and use his email contact form.

·       Shelley Moore Capito: Twitter? @SenCapito - Email? Google Senator Shelley Capito and use her email contact form.

·       Dr. Bill Cassidy: Email? Google Senator Bill Cassidy, scroll down to the word "CONTACT," see the question, "How Can I Help You?" and tell him not to vote yes.

·       Susan Collins: Twitter? @SenatorCollins - Email? Google Senator Susan Collins and click Contact Senator Susan Collins.

·       Dean Heller: Twitter? @SenDeanHeller - Email? Google Senator Dean Heller and click Email Me.

·       Lisa Murkowski: Twitter? @lisamurkowski - Google Senator Lisa Murkowski and click Contact Lisa.

In a previous column I listed eight Republicans, but Rob Portman of Ohio has caved, as they often do.

            You can even send a message to Senator Toomey: @SenToomey on Twitter.

Tell him to save the lives of the little boys and girls, and their fathers and mothers too. That is the Golden Rule.

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