Kucinich: “Is this the US Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs?”

By Jeremy Frombach

[Originally published on OpEdNews.com, Dec. 19, 2008. Jeremy has hit the nail on the head–KR].

‘Is this the U.S. Congress or the board of directors at Goldman Sachs??” asks Dennis Kucinich, the one Democrat probably in all of Congress even worth listening to.

Although Congress received hundreds of thousands of phone calls and e-mails telling them to oppose the bailout of Wall St., Democrats overwhelmingly voted yes, while reluctant Republicans at first defeated the measure, but subsequently caved on the second vote, passing one of the most god awful pieces of legislation in our country’s history, handing over nearly 1/4 of the entire U.S. budget to the financial industry. Here is some information you may find interesting.

http:../../..www. opens..ecret..s. org/..overv..iew/..topco..ntrib..s. php?..cycle..=2008

-Goldman Sachs was the second highest campaign contributor of the entire 2008 election. They gave away $6,006,266. How much of it was used to buy off Democrats you ask? 75%

– JPMorgan Chase & Co was right behind them in the number 3 slot, giving away $4,884,509; 59% of it to Democrats.

– Citigroup is number four with $4,776,231; guess which party received 65%

– Morgan Stanley is 7th, giving $3,871,414. Surprise- Democrats win again with 54%

– and then there’s Merrill Lynch, coming in at 9th overall giving $3,081,190; the only Wall Street firm on the list to give the majority to Republicans, 56%-44%

Still think Obama and the ‘crats are on our side? Really? Do you honestly believe Wall Street firms just love to give money away to politicians who are going to work against them? Can anyone possibly be that dumb?

$22.3 million in campaign contributions in exchange for a $700 billion bailout. That works out to an investment made back 313 times over. You still think the markets imploded because without regulations these gosh’durn Wall Streeters just didn’t know how to do their job? This one “purchase” alone made them a 31,300% return. There is no better investment than buying off a government that controls a $3.2 Trillion budget.

So where does that money come from? Well, you. Sitting for hours behind that desk or waiting tables, or whatever it is that you do, working tirelessly for what little money you can so your government can hand it over to irresponsible banks. And then they can throw extravagant parties with it, like AIG. It was stolen from working people like my mother, who is 56, a college graduate with no retirement savings (because she has no money left after paying for her modest 1 bedroom house) has not bought a new car in 10 years, and spends 50+ hours a week in a cubicle. The working class of this country is facing the highest foreclosure rate in our nation’s history and literally being thrown in the street while they are being asked to charitably donate their tiny earnings back to these banks. Wait, not asked- told. Pay the IRS or go to jail. Surely our new president will not allow such a thing to happen! Wrong again, not only does he not stop it, he is actually a driving force behind it. He goes to the Senate floor to “urge” his colleagues to approve a plan that sends the bill for all of those losses onto people like my mother. Which is fine, she only has to keep the thermostat down to 55 in the winter to make ends meet, Wisconsin is plenty warm in December. Up next she gets to bail out the auto manufacturers who spent billions building cars no one apparently wanted to buy. This is the change everyone has been clamoring for?

This is why even with your college degree you still drive an old car that is falling apart. Why you are still not only renting an apartment rather than buying, but  forced to share it with multiple roommates. Why you have no savings, no assets, no property, why you can’t afford to set any money aside and why you have to live off of your credit cards in case of emergency. It is why you can’t pay your bills on time, why you can’t afford to buy anything without borrowing for it and paying it back for years to come with interest (guess who that benefits) and why it feels like none of us can just get caught up. A huge portion of our money is being siphoned off by the absurd amount of taxation we are forced to live under and it is shipped off to ungrateful and undeserving cogs in the machine like Citigroup, and it is because of the enablers of this system in our government-Barack Obama and others like him.

All I am saying is be objective. Obama and the Democrats are not the saviors the media has made them out to be. If you look at who gave the Republicans their campaign money 8 years ago, it’s the exact same people. Congress with it’s Democratic majority is nothing more than a new cast with the same writers. It’s like that 50th infomercial you’ve seen that says “FINALLY- THE WAY TO SOLID ABS!” Please. The problem is not Republicans, folks. It’s the entire 2 party system being so insanely simple for Wall Street to buy off, and our inability to look past worthless nonsense like a politician’s charisma and his accompanying empty rhetoric that makes us feel “moved”. Don’t be surprised when nothing changes and this next president severely disappoints you.

Maybe we’ll all get it in 2012.

I will leave you with an amazing quote from someone who epitomizes the Democratic Party’s agenda, California Senator Diane Feinstein, speaking on the bailout vote-

‘Mr. President I have received 91,000 phone calls and emails from California; 85,000 of them opposed to this measure… I think if we really do care about the livelihood of our constituents, there is only one vote- and it is yes.’

Unbelieveable.

Our country is burning and our leaders are fighting over the hose; the republicans want to wash the car and the democrats want to water the grass.