Republicans And The No-Strings-Attached Wall Street Bailout: Let's Check In With Roy Blunt & Ken Calvert

Yesterday Glenn Beck was inculcating his zombie audience about how TARP is a "slush fund." Here at DWT we've been talking a lot about how this 2008 TARP bill-- what we usually refer to as the Bush no-strings-attached Wall Street bailout-- would never have been passed without a lot of Republican armtwisting by GOP leaders like Boehner, Cantor, Blunt and Ryan. In fact, two important facts to remember: when the bill was first brought up in the House on September 29, it failed 205-228. On October 1, the Senate larded it up with even more unaccountable taxpayer dollars and it passed, most Republicans voting for it, including several now hypocritically campaigning against it like Richard Burr (R-NC), John McCain (R-AZ), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Thune (R-SD), Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), while progressive Democrats like Russ Feingold (D-WI), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) voted against it!

At that point, Boehner, Cantor, Blunt and Ryan and their lieutenants went to work cracking skulls and bribing Republicans to change their votes to support the GOP's financiers on Wall Street. These 4 are among the most richly bribed Wall Street shills in the history of Congress. And sure enough, the following week Congress was back in session and almost 3 dozen Republicans-- Wall Street whore Charlie Dent (R-PA) was the archetype-- had "seen the light." Thanks to the efforts of Boehner, Blunt, Ryan and Cantor the bill passed 263-171.

Of course that isn't stopping them from trying to jump on the Glenn Beck/teabagger bandwagon to campaign against the bill that they actually passed! I've mostly been hammering on Boehner and Ryan, two of the worst of the hypocritical architects of the TARP bill victory. Yesterday, however, uber-corrupt Missouri banking shill Roy Blunt had the bright spotlight of truth shined onto his distortion-prone campaign for the Senate seat being abandoned by Kit Bond, another voter in favor of the bailout. Blunt has taken an eye-popping $3,623,077 from the Finance Sector, more than any other members of the House other than 5 disgraceful crooks, Charlie Rangel (D-NY- $4,733,273), Spencer Bachus (R-AL- $4,357,924), Eric Cantor (R-VA- $4,199,835), Paul Kanjorski (D-PA- $3,905,193) and Mark Kirk (R-IL- $3,856,013), Boehner took almost the exact same amount of bribes as Blunt-- $3,612,064, a ten grand difference.

Blunt helped negotiate its details and, as House Republican whip, helped round up enough votes to ensure its passage.

Now a candidate for U.S. Senate, Blunt is carefully parsing his past support for the unpopular bank bailout. Blunt's Senate campaign last month accused his Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, of "falsely asserting that Roy Blunt supported a $700 billion bailout package."

Carnahan, who publicly proclaimed no position on the legislation in 2008, now says she would have voted against it. She's using Blunt's yes vote to portray him as an ally of Wall Street instead of Main Street.

...In a Sept. 29, 2008, House speech encouraging colleagues to support the bill, Blunt described it not as a bailout but as a "program that could be a work out" for financial institutions stuck with investments in bad mortgages.

The program had plenty of oversight, Blunt said, and could encourage financial institutions to again make loans for homes, businesses and students.

"This is not about Wall Street, it's about Main Street," Blunt said during his speech.

The House defeated the legislation that day. But it was revived in the Senate and passed the House 263-171 on Oct. 3. Blunt again voted for it.

Of course, Blunt is only one of dozens of Republicans in tight election races who is tap dancing about the bailout. Most of the California Republicans, for example, voted for the bailout and most of them are facing Democrats who were against the no-strings-attached aspect of it. A perfect example is the Riverside and Orange counties race between Ken Calvert and Bill Hedrick. Hedrick is on the record as having opposed the bailout. Calvert voted for it both times.

Calvert, widely seen-- on both sides of the aisle-- as one of the 3 or 4 most corrupt members of Congress, just sent out a franked (taxpayer paid) mailer crying about bailouts and out of control spending. I got this from Hedrick's campaign yesterday:

In another mailer, both of which were recently received by a constituent in Corona, Calvert labels the second $350 billion portion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program as a spending initiative by House Democrats, ignoring his vote to bail out Wall Street in fall 2008.

"Congressman Calvert can run away from his record all he wants but the fact of the matter is that he voted for the Wall Street bailout," said Kristopher Daams, spokesman for Calvert's opponent, Bill Hedrick. "He's clearly using his mailers to try and pull the wool over his constituents' eyes, but he won't be able to fool the voters."

"Something else he doesn't address in his mailers are why bailing out Wall Street was OK, but extending unemployment benefits for his constituents when Riverside and Orange counties are struck with a 14.5 and 9.5 percent unemployment rates, respectively, isn't. He should go on the record and explain why he cares more about Wall Street CEOs than his own constituents."

Bill Hedrick has dedicated 35 years to teaching our children and advocating for teachers in our public schools. He is the longest serving member at 22 years on the Corona-Norco Board of Education-- the 8th largest school district in California serving 53,000 children.