Kucinich Speaks Out - Continued

In desperate times like this, when madmen on both sides of the aisle in Washington are playing partisan politics while our markets flirt with disaster, Congressman Kucinich remains one of the lone courageous advocates for the people in a literal den of self-interested cowards and thieves.

What does Congressman Kucinich have to say about the proposed 700 billion dollar bailout plan that the House failed to pass on Monday? In a recent speech on the House floor, Kucinich stated that the bailout plan exchanges "cash for trash" and "turns [the] U.S. Treasury into a toxic land fill."

With respect to the agenda behind the 700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout plan, Kucinich had this to say to his colleagues:

This legislation is further proof that our government has been turned into an engine that accelerates the wealth upwards, taking money from the pockets of the people of this country and putting it into the hands of the few. That's what our tax policy does, it accelerates our wealth upwards. That's what the war does, it accelerates the wealth upwards. That's what our energy policy does, accelerates the wealth upwards into the hands of the oil companies . . .

When Wall Street makes a profit, it's their profit. When Wall Street loses money, our people lose money . . .

Why aren't we bailing out those millions of Americans who are losing their homes? Why aren't we addressing the fact that 50 million Americans don't have any healthcare? It is absolutely astonishing that we're talking about giving 700 billion dollars of taxpayers' money which comes from the failure of the Fed, through quadrupling of public and private debt during the time of Mr. Greenspan, up to 43 trillion dollars. And we have no discussion at all about the underlying monetary policy.

Watch video of Congressman Kucinich's speech here. Kucinich has also introduced his own bailout plan, which resembles the "Ultimate Main Street Bailout Plan" set forth in these pages a few days ago. Kucinich described the main thrust of his plan as follows:

Since the bailout will cost each and every American about $2,300, tomorrow I will offer legislation to create a United States Mutual Trust Fund, which will take control of $700 billion in stock assets, at market value and not higher, convert those assets to shares, and distrubte $2,300 worth of shares to new individual savings accounts in the name of each and every American."

Interested in hearing more about the bailout from Congressman Kucinich? Here's a link to Kucinich discussing the bailout on the Rachel Maddow Show on September 30.