Friday, February 6, 2009

Inhofe and the GOP (Surprise!) Support Bankers and Wall Street Fatcats

You can always count of the Country Club Republicans to favor the rich. If you're a GOP legislator, apparently, unregulated capitalism always works, even when it doesn't.

Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, of course, is one of those Republicans supporting the Robber Barons.

Here's an cogent analysis of the GOP position from Ryan Grim, writing on The Huffington Post.

Wall Street bankers, with their $18 billion in bonuses, private jets and gaudy conferences, are causing headaches for the GOP.

President Obama has proposed capping compensation for executives at banks that take taxpayer bailout money at $500,000. Republicans hate the idea -- a position puts them uncomfortably on the side of people currently about as popular as child-porn producers and subprime mortgage brokers.

***

"What executives have done is troubling, but it's equally troubling to have government telling shareholders how much they can pay the executives," said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL).

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said that he is "one of the chief defenders of Obama on the Republican side" for the president's efforts to reach across the aisle. But, said Inhofe, "as I was listening to him make those statements I thought, is this still America? Do we really tell people how to run [a business], and who to pay and how much to pay?"

Democrats argue that banks that take government money must accept any rules the government decides to send with it.

***

It's not a novel concept, and it's one the GOP supports -- when applied to welfare recipients, at least. "We demand that welfare recipients do an honest day's work for their checks.

4 comments:

Man of the West said...

They should have seen it coming; government money does not come without government strings--which is one of the reasons I say that bigger government inevitably leads to less freedom.

If you want the freedom to pay what you want to whom you want, you can't go on the government dole.

Whether the money should have been made available in the first place is another matter.

Maria said...

In which case, his position is to let the businesses pay the bonuses and fail. Bye bye bailouts. Let's use that money towards the horrid government deficit.

(And yes, I realize that argument is simplistic and unrealistic.)

Anonymous said...

There should have been a hell of a lot more strings on that money, one of them being not to pass it out as bonuses to failing executives.

So I think I agree with Man on this: "If you want the freedom to pay what you want to whom you want, you can't go on the government dole."

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