Better Democrats Doing Their Thing

by digby

Peter DeFazio, Donna Edwards and a group of progressive Democrats have come up with a plan:

DeFazio’s plan is not in any way based on the Paulson/Bush plan. Instead of throwing taxpayer dollars at the program and crossing our fingers that the plan work, the measure will direct the Administration to take five simple steps, suggested by noted economist and former head of the FDIC, William Isaac, to re-regulate the markets and move America towards a healthy financial future.

The legislation will be available at the press conference.

Who: Rep. DeFazio, Rep. Kaptur (OH-09), Rep. Scott (VA-03), Rep. Cummings (MD-07), Rep. Doggett (TX-25), Rep. Holt (NJ-12), Rep. Edwards (MD-04) and Rep. Hirono (HI-02)
What: Press Conference to introduce legislation to fix financial markets
Where: House Radio and TV Gallery
When: 3 pm TODAY

SEIU is backing it and Congressional Quarterly reported the other day that 106 Republicans would sign on to a bill with these elements. (I’ll believe that when I see it, but … )

I don’t know the details of the plan, but I do have a little bit trust in this group than the Bush administration so my mind is open and I’ll be anxious to see it.

I do believe that it’s also important for Democrats to begin to argue, right this minute, that this legislation is nothing more than an emergency stop gap measure and that the economy at large has been battered and degraded by years of conservative experiments in laissez faire, supply side economics, rapacious lenders and lack of important investment in the future. The results of that gilded age of the vastly wealthy becoming ever richer at the expense of ordinary Americans is at an end, and we are desperately in need of a New New Deal for the 21st century to grapple with the much larger underlying problems.

That, of course, is something for Senator Obama to take the lead on. I would love to see him make that argument at the next debate. If they insist upon creating conditions for a Shock Doctrine, liberals should step in and use it for good. They’ve done it in the past and it made this country a much, much better place.

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