Monday, September 22, 2008

Senator Shelby Says Paulson has been Staggering

I was heartened to hear my Senator, Richard Shelby (R - AL) this morning on National Public Radio urging caution on the financial bailout as proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. I appreciate Mr. Shelby saying: "We don't know the endgame in this, and I'll tell you, what bothers me about this is that I believe that the chairman of the Fed and the Treasury secretary, Paulson, with all due respect to them, they've been staggering from crisis to crisis, and they haven't even said today that this will end the crisis."

I hope he continues to work with Senator Chris Dodd (D- CT) to ensure:
1) Accountability and transparency through oversight provisions
2) That taxpayers are first in line for any monies recovered (including prevention of any large payouts to senior executives at the impacted financial institutions)
3) That the mortgage crisis itself is addressed, i.e. that homeowners and lenders submit to a judge and get a restructuring of terms rather than all the failures.

(Dodd was interviewed on NPR this morning.)

By the way, it was nice to hear Alabama on the national news in a positive light, rather than about the Don Siegelman/Richard Scrushy mess or a judge that won't keep church and government separate.

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