For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The financial meltdown requires far-reaching Green solutions, say
Green Party leaders
• Green presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney speaks out on the
crisis, offers a ten-point plan:
http://votetruth08.com/index.php/learn/mckinney-messages
• The collapse and bailout of financial institutions expose the lies
behind deregulation and the free-market ideology; Greens insist that
the burden of the $900 billion bailout not be placed on working
Americans
WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party leaders and candidates, including
presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney, are calling for extensive
measures and reforms to resolve the economic crisis caused by the
collapse of mortgage providers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, investment
banks Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, American International Group
(AIG), and other financial companies.
“The takeovers, $900 billion bailout, and other actions that President
Bush are taking right now confirm what Greens have said all along.
Deregulation and other ‘free-market’ solutions are a recipe for
disaster,” said Abel Tomlinson, Arkansas Green Party candidate for
Congress (3rd District) (http://www.abelforcongress.com).
“Perhaps the gravest danger is that the burden placed on the FDIC
[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] and the commercial banks and
the continuing bailouts to prevent the meltdown from hemorrhaging will
be paid for by middle- and low-income US taxpayers. Â Meanwhile the
execs responsible for the crisis will get to keep their huge bonuses,
pensions, tax breaks, and other handouts,” said Mr. Tomlinson.
Greens noted another serious danger, that the bailout will drain money
that should be used to keep Social Security secure.
“Instead of the bromides, unconvincing reassurances, and ineffective
half-measures that we’re hearing from John McCain, Barack Obama, and
their fellow Republicans and Democrats, we need to take drastic steps.
We need Green measures to fix a system that doesn’t work,” said Steve
Alesch, Green candidate for Congress in Illinois (13th District)
(http://www.votesteve.org).
Cynthia McKinney released a statement on Friday on the crisis, with a
ten-point list of solutions and reforms, titled “Seize the Time”
(http://votetruth08.com/index.php/learn/mckinney-messages).
Agreeing with Ms. McKinney’s proposals, Greens said that the White
House and Congress must:
• Pay for the massive transfer of wealth without placing the greater
burden on working people and the poor. Â Those who made huge profits
from the financial policies that led to the meltdown should be
expected to pay for the major portion of the bailout, through the
closing of tax loopholes and repeal of Bush tax cuts for top income
earners, caps on CEO salaries and bonuses and on the corporate tax
deductability of excessive CEO salaries and bonuses, and recovery of
exorbitant payouts that financial industry executives have given
themselves in recent decades, as well as a windfall proft tax on oil
companies.
• In bailing out financial institutions and absorbing their debt,
assert the US government’s assumption of equity/ownership over them in
exchange (as was done with AIG), and replace the secret negotiations
and backroom deals that pervaded the industry with transparency and
democratic control. Â “The Federal Reserve is becoming the lender of
last resort. Â This means that the people are becoming the owners of
the primary instruments of US capital and finance. Â This now means
that the people have a say in how these instruments are to be used and
what their priorities ought to be. Â The people should now have more
say in how their tax dollars are spent and what the priorities of
government and the public sector must be. Â We the people must now set
our demands to ensure and promote the public good,” said Cynthia
McKinney in her statement.
• Stop appointing Treasury Secretaries, Federal Reserve board members,
and other top financial policy-makers whose chief loyalties are to the
major financial corporations from which they’re recruited.
Restructure semi-private and private institutions like the Federal
Reserve, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac to be owned, run, and staffed
strictly for the public interest. Â “[T]he Federal Reserve should
operate in the interests of the US taxpayer and not the interests of
the private, international bankers that it currently represents.
This, of course means that the Federal Reserve, too, must undergo a
fundamental ownership and mission change,” said Ms. McKinney.
• Impose a moratorium on foreclosures now before increases in the
adjustable rate mortgage interest increases take effect; eliminate all
adjustable rate mortgages; renegotiate the latter as 30- or 40-year
loans; establish new mortgage lending practices to end predatory and
discriminatory practices.
• Promote an economy that’s based on sustainability rather than on
lending and borrowing beyond one’s means. Â Raising the debt ceiling
will lead to greater potential liability and further economic
meltdown.
• Establish criteria and construction goals for affordable housing;
massively increase funding for housing programs that assist tenants
(e.g., Section 8, public housing) that have been slashed repeatedly
since the Reagan Administration. Â Recognize shelter as a right
according to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, to which the US is a
signatory.
• Redefine credit and regulate the credit industry so that
discriminatory practices are eliminated. Â Fully fund initiatives to
eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in home ownership.
• Establish a fund to cushion job loss and provide for retraining of
those at the bottom of the income scale as the economy transitions.
• Increase taxes on corporations so that they pay their fair share and
deny federal subsidies to those who relocate jobs overseas. Â Repeal
NAFTA and renegotiate trade agreements so that national and local
economies, jobs, human rights, and the environment are protected.
• End military-industrial complex handouts.  Major cuts in military
contracts — especially if combined with a quick withdrawal of US
troops and military contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan — will
provide a huge windfall.
• Downsize the insurance industry.  Corporate health insurance is not
an essential service and can be replaced with a single-payer national
health care program that would drastically cut health care costs,
since the profit-taking insurance and HMO middle-men would be
eliminated.
• Introduce creative ideas to democratize the financial industry, with
alternative models such as public banks and insurance firms,
consumer/worker ownership of such companies, and restructuring that
would use the financial industry to promote conservation projects,
transition to non-fossil-fuel energy and ecologically sound
infrastructure, and creation of millions of jobs related to these
efforts.
I think by making simple decisions to buy or not buy, consumers have changed entire industries — banking, travel, cell phones. A little pressure from consumers typically produces a lot of innovation that shifts products, competition, prices, quality, choices, and ultimately value. The problem with personal and corporate health insurance plans is that it has been built around providers, insurers, the government, employers — and not around consumers. We’ve ended up with spiralling costs and few consumer choices, primarily because many of the regulations and mindsets governing health care have inhibited the kind of broad-scale consumer innovation that’s happened in other industries.