October, 02 2008, 01:30pm EDT
Senate Approves Bailout
Ellen Frank: Situation does not require the hasty passing of a terrible bill
WASHINGTON
On Wednesday night, the US Senate passed, by a margin of 74-25, a renovated version of the same Paulson rescue bill that the House rejected on Monday. The Paulson proposal has stayed relatively intact however, with the central new additions to the bill taking the form of tax breaks and increased federal deposit protection.
The bill approved by the Senate included tax breaks for the middle class and businesses, measures senators hoped would make the bill more palatable for the House. It would also raise the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s coverage cap for deposits to $250,000 from $100,000.
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama made a rare appearance to cast yea votes. Earlier both presidential candidates had urged their fellow senator to get behind the resurrected financial bailout bill saying it was necessary to stabilize the economy. In the Senate 9 Democrats, 15 Republicans and 1 Independent voted against the bill
The Real News Senior Editor spoke to Paul Jay spoke to Ellen Frank, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts. Frank says " I don't think we will ever see anything in the US like the 1930 style period. We are not going to see 25% unemployement rates. We have government fiscal policies in place now. That is not a problem. That doesn't mean we will not face serious recessionary pressure, serious unemployment and serious problems in the credit market. It doesn't mean we couldn't face the problem Japan faced in 1990."
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Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
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Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
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