Did Sanders vote for or against the bill that became law which bailed out the auto industry?

[boston bean]

He voted against it, is the answer.

[Nonhlanhla]

1. Yes, he voted against the final bill

due to his opposition to TARP. He had previously voted for an auto bailout bill which did not pass. The auto bailout then became part of TARP, and because he was opposed to bailing out the banks, he voted, in effect, also against the auto bailout.

I think this illustrates the problem with Bernie quite well: ideological purity, which makes him so appealing to his fans, but which also means that in effect he gets little done, and which also means that sometimes he refuses to take the responsible route.

[Lucinda]

8. Exactly.

Representative Government. We has one.

[Vattel]

30. His voting record is better than Clinton's.

[stevenleser]

42. We'll see today if those who depend on the auto industry agree. nt

[Vattel]

122. Many don't vote on record.

[think]

32. The TARP bill bailed out the corrupt too big to fail banks that should have been prosecuted

Like they did in Iceland. Here we rewarded criminal banks and let millions of Americans suffer the effects. Refusing to go along with a scam of epic proportions isn't purity. It's integrity. Something Clinton will never have.

[Nonhlanhla]

35. The economy was in free fall

Yes, the banks did not deserve to be bailed out. But not doing so would very likely have sent us into a full blown depression. TARP was imperfect but necessary. Hillary had the courage to vote for it. Bernie was too ideologically stubborn.

[Armstead]

63. And why was the economy in free fall -- Support of bad policies for 30 years

[Nonhlanhla]

75. True

but that was not the time for blame games. People's lives were at stake.

[Armstead]

83. The 2008 auto bill failed because most Democrats failed to compromise

They did not cave to GOP demands that wage concessions and other things would be included in that version.

I'm not criticizing that, because they were doing the right thing. But it does illustrate that it is not a "this or that" situation, and that Bernie was dealing with the same twists and tugs among bad options and fundamental principles that all politicians were at the time.

[Thinkingabout]

89. If the banks failed there would have been grave consequences for all.

The middle class would not be middle class anymore but below poverty level. Many of our jobs would be gone because employers depend on loans to make payroll in lean times, there would be a downturn in services and products because jobs would have ended. The money granted to the auto bail out was repaid, workers continued to work and in some cases returned to work, they started to pay taxes, passing TARP wad very smart.

The CFMA was a big part in the financial crisis, something quickly overlooked by many. The funds was not given smartly by Hank Paulson, a Bush administration member. President followed by helping in the homeowner foreclosure.

[Nonhlanhla]

101. Exactly

I realize that the bank bailout was unpopular, but it was the right thing to do. Bernie's vote against it bothers me, even though I understand the criticisms against it.

Hillary Clinton does not have the same sheen of ideological purity that Bernie has - but it is in part because she is willing to make courageous choices like that. There are things to criticize her for, to be sure, but she is right about the need to make "hard choices." I don't see Bernie being willing to do that, at least not often, which is why I don't support his candidacy, even though I agree with many of his talking points.

[earthside]

88. So, Hillary voted for Bush Banker Bailout.

The kind of politics Hillary Clinton is playing with the auto bailout question is exactly and precisely why I despise her so much.

She is a typical, status quo, good ol'boy, dirty politician. She has few if any principles and puts her own political advancement before virtually any other consideration.

Frankly, I find this tactic very Trumpian.

If Hillary, David Brock and her elitist campaign organization is going to go scorched earth, then that is just fine ... that is what she will reap if (heaven forbid) she gets the nomination.

[Adrahil]

113. You can certainly argue that the banksters should have been prosecuted.

I'd agree. But allowing our complete financial system to collapse would have been INSANE. It would have meant that TENS OF MILLIONS of people would have been wiped out.

[think]

119. No one is saying nothing should have been done including Bernie. What was done was wrong.

And the way it was handled was a complete fiasco.

This was book written by the Inspector General who over saw the TARP program.

Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street

by Neil Barofsky

In telling of his stranger-than-fiction baptism into the corrupted ways of Washington, Barofsky offers an irrefutable indictment, from an insider of the Bush & Obama administrations, of the mishandling of the $700 billion TARP bailout fund. In behind-the-scenes detail, he shows the extreme degree to which government officials bent over backward to serve the interests of Wall Street firms at the expense of the public—& at the expense of effective financial reform. During the height of the financial crisis in 2008, Barofsky gave up his job as a prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office in NYC, where he'd convicted drug kingpins, Wall Street executives & mortgage fraud perpetrators, to become the special inspector general in charge of oversight of bailout money spending. From the first his efforts to protect against fraud & to hold big banks accountable for how they spent taxpayer money were met with outright hostility from Treasury officials in charge of the bailouts.

Barofsky discloses how, in serving banking interests, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner & his team worked with Wall Street executives to design programs to would funnel vast amounts of taxpayer money to their firms & would have allowed them to game the markets & make huge profits with almost no risk or accountability, while repeatedly fighting efforts to put the necessary fraud protections in place. His investigations also uncovered abject mismanagement of the bailout of insurance giant AIG & Geithner’s decision to allow the payment of millions of dollars in bonuses & that the Obama administration’s TARP Czar lobbied for the executives to retain their high pay....

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15737379-bailout

Bernie Sanders response to TARP:

Wall Street Bailout

The Senate approved a $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Senator Bernie Sanders voted against the bill that would put Wall Street's burden on the backs of the American middle class. "The bailout package is far better than the absurd proposal originally presented to us by the Bush administration, but is still short of where we should be," Sanders said. "If a bailout is needed, if taxpayer money must be placed at risk, if we are going to bail out Wall Street, it should be those people who have cau

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The Senate approved a $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Senator Bernie Sanders voted against the bill that would put Wall Street's burden on the backs of the American middle class. "The bailout package is far better than the absurd proposal originally presented to us by the Bush administration, but is still short of where we should be," Sanders said. "If a bailout is needed, if taxpayer money must be placed at risk, if we are going to bail out Wall Street, it should be those people who have caused the problem, those people who have benefited from President Bush's tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, those people who have taken advantage of deregulation who should pick up the tab, not ordinary working people."

Sanders proposed a five-year, 10 percent surtax on families with incomes of more than $1 million year and individuals earning over $500,00 to raise $300 billion to help bankroll the bailout. Senators, however, set aside the amendment on a voice vote.

In a Senate floor speech, Sanders elaborated on the bailout bill's flaws:

"This country faces many serious problems in the financial market, in the stock market, in our economy. We must act, but we must act in a way that improves the situation. We can do better than the legislation now before Congress.

"This bill does not effectively address the issue of what the taxpayers of our country will actually own after they invest hundreds of billions of dollars in toxic assets. This bill does not effectively address the issue of oversight because the oversight board members have all been hand picked by the Bush administration. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of foreclosures and addressing that very serious issue, which is impacting millions of low- and moderate-income Americans in the aggressive, effective way that we should be. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of executive compensation and golden parachutes. Under this bill, the CEOs and the Wall Street insiders will still, with a little bit of imagination, continue to make out like bandits.

"This bill does not deal at all with how we got into this crisis in the first place and the need to undo the deregulatory fervor which created trillions of dollars in complicated and unregulated financial instruments such as credit default swaps and hedge funds. This bill does not address the issue that has taken us to where we are today, the concept of too big to fail. In fact, within the last several weeks we have sat idly by and watched gigantic financial institutions like the Bank of America swallow up other gigantic financial institutions like Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. Well, who is going to bail out the Bank of America if it begins to fail? There is not one word about the issue of too big to fail in this legislation at a time when that problem is in fact becoming even more serious.

"This bill does not deal with the absurdity of having the fox guarding the hen house. Maybe I'm the only person in America who thinks so, but I have a hard time understanding why we are giving $700 billion to the Secretary of the Treasury, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, who along with other financial institutions, actually got us into this problem. Now, maybe I'm the only person in America who thinks that's a little bit weird, but that is what I think.

"This bill does not address the major economic crisis we face: growing unemployment, low wages, the need to create decent-paying jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure and moving us to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

"There is one issue that is even more profound and more basic than everything else that I have mentioned, and that is if a bailout is needed, if taxpayer money must be placed at risk, whose money should it be? In other words, who should be paying for this bailout which has been caused by the greed and recklessness of Wall Street operatives who have made billions in recent years?

"The American people are bitter. They are angry, and they are confused. Over the last seven and a half year, since George W. Bush has been President, 6 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and are in poverty, and today working families are lining up at emergency food shelves in order to get the food they need to feed their families. Since President Bush has been in office, median family income for working-age families has declined by over $2,000. More than seven million Americans have lost their health insurance. Over four million have lost their pensions. Consumer debt has more than doubled. And foreclosures are the highest on record. Meanwhile, the cost of energy, food, health care, college and other basic necessities has soared.

"While the middle class has declined under President Bush's reckless economic policies, the people on top have never had it so good. For the first seven years of Bush's tenure, the wealthiest 400 individuals in our country saw a $670 billion increase in their wealth, and at the end of 2007 owned over $1.5 trillion in wealth. That is just 400 families, a $670 billion increase in wealth since Bush has been in office. ...

Full statement:
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2008/10/01/wall-street-bailout

[Armstead]

60. Perhaps if more Democrats has similar principles we'd all be in a lot better shape

[YCHDT]

61. Right, Hillary is seldom afforded the nuance Sanders is given

[still_one]

85. in spite of the deficiences of TARP, it prevented a complete economic collapse,

while those that were ranting about letting the financial sector go under under, millions would have been hurt

Something needed to be done, and quickly, because time wasn't on our side

[Thinkingabout]

90. Yes it did, something which did not happen because of TARP.

[Adrahil]

112. Also, TARP, however distasteful was NECESSARY. NT

[riversedge]

2. rec

[Lucinda]

3. Yep.

[boston bean]

6. hey-o Lucinda!

[Lucinda]

10. Alloo!

Hope all is well with you and yours!

[boston bean]

18. Very good, Lucinda!

And yours?

[Lucinda]

20. Less good. But we are hanging in!

[boston bean]

23. I shall hope for more good!

[Yuugal]

4. He did both.

But you knew that. He voted for the plain auto bill, then, when it was tied to the criminal rape of our treasury to benefit the very crooks who crashed the economy, he voted against the whole bill. I admire both votes.

Now it is your turn.

How do you feel about Hillary being willing to compromise on abortion?

[JustAnotherGen]

5. Yes then no

TARP he voted down because it was earmarked to bail out the banks.

General Motors and Chrysler were actually bailed out using money from TARP, the $700 billion bank bailout that passed during the financial crisis in the fall of 2008. When it was originally proposed, there were no plans to use the money to save the auto industry.

Obama tapped into TARP (as did Bush in December 2008) and then Senator Sanders got on board.

Q4 2008 shows how Dodd Frank was a good start - but we need to reimplement Glass Steagall and go one step more . . . Hold banking employees to the same standards as employees engaged in Import/Export Control. And - create a new classification on the BIS List for people who break those laws.

[Recursion]

40. This is pretty clearly the most accurate answer.

Sanders opposed and supported different parts of the legislation at different times.

[Enrique]

7. he voted for it

Leahy (D) Yes; Sanders (I) Yes.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_wires/2008Dec12/0,4675,SenateRollCallAutos,00.html

[Nonhlanhla]

11. He did not vote for the money that was actually used in the auto bailout

because ideological purity.

[Enrique]

13. the OP asked for a yes/no answer

the answer is YES

[boston bean]

15. You answered incorrectly then.

[Nonhlanhla]

16. If it comes down to a yes/no answer, then the answer is no

since he did not vote for the actual bailout, just for a previous draft that did not pass in the end.

[Recursion]

9. It's a shame TARP is as vilified as it is; it was a very successful program

It saved the financial, banking, and insurance sectors, as well as the auto industry, and made money for the government in the process.

Sanders voted for and against different parts of TARP, but as you point out, his vote on the original bill was "no", which disappoints me.

[Nonhlanhla]

14. It disappoints me too

It sounds right to say that the rich should have bailed out Wall Street/banks, but the reality is that with the economy in free fall, not rescuing them would have resulted in even more suffering of millions of ordinary people.

I am also disappointed in Bernie's vote on this.

[think]

33. Tarp bailed out criminal banks that screwed this country over. Iceland got it right.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-14/goldman-sachs-misled-congress-after-duping-clients-over-cdos-levin-says

And they continue to screw us over:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/21/business/dealbook/5-big-banks-to-pay-billions-and-plead-guilty-in-currency-and-interest-rate-cases.html?_r=0

[Recursion]

39. Yeah, and it did so very intelligently, and made the government money

TARP was a wonderful program.

[think]

41. Bullshit.

[Recursion]

44. Well, no

It was an incredibly successful program that cost taxpayers nothing. It's very dishonest to pretend anything else.

[think]

45. The big banks screwed this country and got rewarded for it instead of prosecuted

And you call that a success. go figure....

[Recursion]

46. They paid back more than they received

So, yes: it was a success. It wrung a good deal of money from banks back into the Treasury.

Why you are against the government taking banks' money is absolutely beyond me,but then this is an ideologically diverse party.

[think]

49. You didn't get screwed so it was a success. Got it. For the millions that did get screwed. Not so

much.

These banks violated laws, lied to congress, lied to their customers, and then took the bailout money while foreclosing on the homes of the American people caught in the banks' quagmire.

So keep pushing the meme that the bailout was a success. For the banks. Yes it was very successful. For the American people who lost their homes, jobs, and pensions it was an utter nightmare.....

[beedle]

118. successful?

Only if by 'successful' you mean they finally paid back the loan .. if you discount the fact that they took the money for years and put it 'under their pillows' and only brought it out to pay big bonuses to the same corrupt losers that screwed things up in the first place ... causing regular people to suffer, lose their homes, jobs, savings, retirement funds, credit ratings, education, healthcare, etc.

Unless you're a Republican and wanted all that to happen I don't know how you could possibly call those results 'successful'?

And on top of that the same criminals are still in power and ready to repeat the same bullshit.

[basselope]

121. IT LOST MONEY!

Stop with this "making money" lie.

[My Good Babushka]

78. TOUBLED asset relief program

If your government has to pass something called a TROUBLED asset relief program, it really wasn't doing it job as a regulatory entity. That's like saying, "wow, what a swell piece of tape you slapped on that crumbling piece of shit there."

[Recursion]

79. "TROUBLED", incidentally

You do know that banks all over Europe also had troubled assets, right?

[My Good Babushka]

86. Yes, congratulations to the U.S.

for the subprime mortgage crises that drove the world to the economic brink.

[Recursion]

87. You might look at Europe first

Simplistic answers are almost always wrong...

[My Good Babushka]

93. Mortgage backed debt originated in U.S. market.

The immediate cause of the crisis was the bursting of the United States housing bubble.

[Recursion]

95. That's just flatly untrue

Where did you get that idea?

[basselope]

97. You are really in denial on this issue, aren't you?

[My Good Babushka]

99. Are you suggesting that it's Europe's fault

that global investors stopped wanting to buy shitty mortgage backed securities after the housing bubble burst and they were revealed to be shitty?

"Because Yurp"?

[basselope]

91. Successful for who exactly?

There were several ways to attack the problem.. we found the may that most benefited the billionaire class and the very criminals who got us into the mess in the first place.

So, sorry, but TARP was NOT a "very successful program". When you calculate inflation and interest on the debt, TARP was a money loser that put the burden on the taxpayer instead of on the very people who caused the problem.

[Recursion]

92. That's a damn lie

When you calculate inflation and interest on the debt, TARP was a money loser that put the burden on the taxpayer

That's an absurd lie and you should be ashamed of it.

[basselope]

96. It's not a lie at all. You just need math.

Total profit on the TARP deal was calculated at 15B over 6 years. (here is the woohoo article on it) http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/19/news/companies/government-bailouts-end/


That is a .6% return on the 700B.

Current interest rates on the national debt are 2.43%

So TARP COST US 17B per year in interest costs * 6 years = 102B

102B in interest costs vs a 15B investment gain = 87 Billion dollar loss.


What you should be ashamed of is trying sell Tarp as a success. It was a HUGE LOSS to the working class and the tax payers and the very worst way to solve a problem they created.

[Recursion]

98. So you're actually running with "it didn't make the government enough money"?

Fine. I won't bother with this. You "win".

[basselope]

104. It LOST MONEY in ANY financial analysis.

If you borrow money from a friend to invest a stock under the promise you will give them double there money back in a year.

You buy the stock and it goes up 50%, instead of doubling, you then have to sell the stock and give your friend MORE MONEY that you started with.

It's very VERY simple. TARP was a FAILURE.

There were dozens of other possible solutions out there that would have worked.. but they weren't considered.

Instead we went with the one that best benefited the corporations. Least benefited the people who were losing their homes due to the deceptive practices of the mortgage companies and banks and LOST MONEY FOR THE TAXPAYERS.

It's called REALITY!

[Recursion]

106. No, it absolutely did not

Taking in more than you paid out is a gain, not a loss. Sorry.

[JonLeibowitz]

108. Only if it is above the risk free rate. Which it was not.

[basselope]

120. No, it's not, when you paid more for the money.

I'll try this again.

I give you $100 to buy some stock. You promise to pay me 10% interest per year. ($10 per year.. let's not even compound it).

You buy the stock. for $100.

6 years later you sell the stock for $130.

By your assessment you made money.

However.. here is reality.

You paid me $10 per year for 6 years = $60

You paid me back my $100 at the end of 6 years = $100

So you SPENT $160 to GET $130.

You lost $30.


THAT is what REALLY happened with TARP. The 700B wasn't FREE. It added to the deficit and thus to the DEBT! We paid 2.43% interest on it (and that DOES COMPOUND).

TARP was a money LOSER!

Period.

[Broward]

12. Did Hillary lie and say Bernie was against the auto bailout?

Of course she did. Every other word out of her mouth is a lie.

[boston bean]

17. No, because it is true he voted against it during its final passage.

[Broward]

19. You are supporting a liar.

[stonecutter357]

26. .

[Nonhlanhla]

21. Bernie did not put his money where his mouth is.

He (reluctantly) initially said he is in favor of the auto bailout, and voted for a version of it which did not pass.

Here are Hillary's exact words: ""He was against the auto bailout. In January of 2009, President-elect Obama asked everybody in the Congress to vote for the bailout. The money was there and had to be released in order to save the American auto industry and 4 million jobs and to begin the restructuring. We had the best year that the auto industry has had in a long time. I voted to save the auto industry. He voted against the money that ended up saving the auto industry."

Now you could argue that the first underlined statement above is not true, because Bernie did in fact initially support the auto bailout (apparently somewhat reluctantly). But he did not put his money where his mouth is. He was not sufficiently in favor of the auto bailout to vote for the actual money that saved it, since his ideological purity did not allow him to vote for TARP. So the first underlined statement is only false if you look at what Bernie initially said, and not what he actually did. The second underlined statement is true in every sense of the word.

No, Hillary did not lie. I'm so sick and tired of hearing from Bernie supporters that everything she says that they don't agree with, or which they don't grasp the nuance of, is a lie. All politicians lie to some extent. Bernie now saying that he did in fact support the auto bailout is a half truth, even less than half, since he did not support the actual money that was used for the auto bailout. in other words, Bernie is in fact lying.

[Broward]

22. She truly is a shining example.

Hey kids, you too can get ahead. Just lie your ass off. She's also so lucky to have dutiful followers that will propagate her lies.

[stonecutter357]

27. .

[thesquanderer]

73. re: not being "sufficiently in favor of the auto bailout to vote for the actual money that saved it"

please see my post at http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511442855

particularly the last three paragraphs which specifically address your point.

[thesquanderer]

123. re: "The second underlined statement is true in every sense of the word. "

Again, not so simple.

He voted against releasing a $350 billion TARP payment, which was almost entirely Wall Street bailout, and included only a small portion for the auto industry, making it a tough deal to begin with. But even then, his intent was not to stop the bill, but to improve its terms.

There were only two possibilities when Bernie cast that "no" vote... that it would pass anyway (auto industry saved), or that some other version would subsequently pass (again, auto industry saved). At that point, there was no chance that the auto bailout was not going to happen, the question was whether the Wall Street bailout section could have been improved. As I posted elsewhere,

But if the bill Bernie voted against had not passed, as I said, there would have been further negotiation, Congress was not going to give up at that point, everyone knew *something* had to pass. Further negotiation would not have removed the auto bailout, since they had already come to terms on that, and it was not the sticking point. The arguments were about whether the Wall Street parts could have been strengthened, to shift it from an essentially "no strings attached" bailout to one with more accountability. This was the argument that was going on at the time, and not just from Bernie.

Please see http://www.savingtoinvest.com/should-remaining-350-billion-tarp-funds/

So it is a safe bet that we were going to get a Wall Street bailout that included an Auto Industry bailout, no matter what.

Clearly, it is wrong to say that Bernie was against the bailout (he was obviously for it), and impossible to conclude that, if "Bernie had had his way" (based on that TARP vote) then the auto industry would not have been bailed out (since it seems inevitable that the auto bailout would have appeared in whatever version of TARP was going to pass, regardless of that particular vote), which means that the Hillary camp's claims to the contrary were, to put it politely, disingenuous.

btw, Bernie's own statement on the Wall Street bailout at the time can also be found at http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2008/10/01/wall-street-bailout and it is consistent with all of the above.

[snowy owl]

24. Was that the right vote?

Given he analyzed the distribution of money and chose to vote against it, was it the right vote or was the bail out of the auto industry worth the bail out of banks but not of homeowners? Think a little deeper and respond.

[stonecutter357]

25. He voted against it,

[auntpurl]

28. This issue is actually the perfect encapsulation of Bernie's campaign

and the problems many have with him as a potential President.

Sometimes you have to compromise. Sometimes you have to eat the shit sandwich. Otherwise nothing gets done. Ideological purity means nothing if the auto industry collapses, taking the American economy with it.

This issue is also the perfect encapsulation of Hillary's campaign and the reason some of us support her. She knows how to compromise. She knows how government works. She is an insider, and I think that's a good thing.

[boston bean]

29. I agree.

[bigtree]

31. +100

[el_bryanto]

34. Of course you are pretending that Hillary questioned giving the Banks TARP money

Which she didn't. This wasn't a situation where Clinton said "Well I don't feel comfortable bailing out Wall Street investment banks, but I need to do it to save the Auto Industry." Rather she wanted to let the big investment banks off the hook; so for her it wasn't really a compromise. It was her getting two things she wanted; bailing out the auto industry and bailing out her Wall Street cronies.

Bryant

[Demsrule86]

59. Tarp was very unpopular in January

So it was an act of courage for Senator Clinton to vote for it...effectively saving autos. Now, I don't like Bernie's position even if it was based on ideology because auto jobs would still be gone.

[auntpurl]

65. And it also turned out to be very profitable for the US government.

We got billions back - it cost the taxpayers nothing.

And you're right - it was a risky political move for Hillary because so many people were so angry about the financial crisis. But she made the hard call, and turned out to be on the right side of the issue. She listened to Michigan senators who were begging for help and she listened to President Obama. She is an astute observer of politics - if it hadn't gone as well as it did, she knew it could come back to bite her. But she made the hard call.

[el_bryanto]

66. What courage? Clinton knew that by doing that she might have some people upset with her

But she would also continue to have access to the Wall Street Coffers.

Bryant

[YCHDT]

64. I agree, it's immature to expect that all answers are going to be black or white

[Armstead]

68. Business as usual has served us so well

Who controls Congress? Who controls most state governments?

Is the economy working for the majority, rather then siphoning money upward? Are workers better off? Do we have strong unions?

Does actual competitive free enterprise capitalism actually exist anymore, or have we morphed into Monopolistic Non-Competitive Corporate Domination of all sectors of the economy?

[auntpurl]

74. Hillary is for progress

as stated in her platform. If you don't believe she will work toward progress, well that's a character issue. It's perfectly reasonable, if you think Hillary is a greedy liar, for you to disbelieve her when she says she has a plan to create jobs, increase tax on corporations, and support unions. You would be perfectly reasonable to discount the millions and millions of dollars she's raised for down-ticket candidates. On the other hand, I do believe her. This is why we all have a vote.

Obama made progress, and Hillary wants to continue that progress and add some of her own. That is what I want. I don't want to blow up the system. I don't think it's broken, or useless, or doesn't serve the American people anymore. And although I am an admittedly useless anecdotal example of one, judging by how the vote is going so far in the Democratic primary, I suspect I am not the only one who feels that way. Dems, when polled, in the majority like their leaders and think the country is generally going in a good direction.

[thesquanderer]

71. About compromise...

please see my post at http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511442855

particularly the last three paragraphs which specifically address your point.

[Bluenorthwest]

36. Refresh my memory. Is this the bill to address the Bush Crash that came about as a result of

very costly and meaningless wars waged by Bush and his Congress of Cronies? The 'we spent all this money we were pretending to have so we could Shock and Awe for a while' bill?

[Nonhlanhla]

76. I wonder if we would have had those wars

if Gore had been president? I think not.

Something for the purists who refuse to vote for the Dem nominee to ponder...

[NurseJackie]

37. This is what being "inflexible" gets you ...

... this is what "no compromise" means, namely: no progress.

Making decisions and taking choices is "hard work" (as W often complained).

[Kall]

110. Good thing we had all those Democrats to enable Iraq.

Sure would have sucked if more of them were inflexible.

[Alfresco]

38. Yes he did, Hillary was correct.

[Live and Learn]

43. Did Hillary vote to bailout the bankers that now support her with our tax dollars?

Yes.

[Kittycat]

50. Cut it out!

Cut that check out to the Clinton foundation, Hillary Clinton, and my SuperPac.

[DCBob]

48. This is a good example of why Bernie's inflexible rigid approach to politics..

wont work in the real world.

[Armstead]

70. It would work if more Democrats were more inflexible for the right reasons

[fredamae]

51. Here is the Senate Roll Call

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/votes.htm
Facts and Public Records.

[Demsrule86]

52. Both!

Bernie voted for a stand alone bill to help autos...but when it was tacked on to a larger bailout for banks, he voted against it. And this is my problem with Bernie, we would have lost the entire auto industry had he had his way. Sometimes you have to do the best you can with what you have. My hubs works for autos I should add in the interest of fairness. Honestly, this vote , the gun votes and some very questionable remarks on race are the reasons why I am voting for Hillary in the primaries (Ohio). However, I will vote for the Democratic nominee period: no matter who it is and work for that candidate as I always do. In my opinion unless we take the congress, the only thing that can be accomplished is good court picks.

[thesquanderer]

72. re "we would have lost the entire auto industry had he had his way"

please see my post at http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511442855

particularly the last three paragraphs which specifically address your point.

[Buzz Clik]

53. Against.

He supported a bill that could not be passed.

It's called triangulation -- "I was for it before I was against it."

[CdnExtraNational]

54. Swiftboating

When Bernie Sanders voted against the TARP bill on September 27, 2008 there was no mention of auto industry bailout in the bill.

Bernie Sanders voted for the Auto Bailout on December 10, 2008. It failed in the Senate.

In January 2009 President Bush and President Elect Obama repurposed some of the TARP bill money to save the auto industry.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008.

[boston bean]

56. and??????????

[yourpaljoey]

55. This kind of nonsense has no place on a 'Democratic' site

[fredamae]

57. TARP Vote 10-1-2008

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00213#position


What the bill does:
My personal favorite...(I was AGAINST TARP also, btw)>"In addition, the law includes relief for another year from the Alternative Minimum Tax, without which millions of Americans would have to pay the so-called "income tax for the wealthy."
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/news/economy/house_bill_summary/index.htm?postversion=2008100316

Auto Bailout Bill Failed based upon 60 Vote Threshold (filibustered)
"Democrats pressed the White House from the start to help Detroit by using some of the $700 billion for the financial sector, but the White House and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson refused.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/11/auto.bailout/index.html

[redstateblues]

58. The truth hurts. Bernie was for it before he voted against it

If Bernie had prevailed there would be no GM or Chrysler

[Freddie Stubbs]

62. "He was for it before he was against it"

He should adopt that as his campaign slogan. It worked so well in the past.

[MSMITH33156]

67. He stole from John Kerry

He voted for the auto bailout before he voted against it. We know how that plays in a general election.

[Lizzie Poppet]

69. He was for it...until it was tied to a disgusting Wall Street giveaway.

In other words, he did the principled thing.

[gcomeau]

77. And if you think that's an honest representation of events...

I have a bridge to sell you.

That's like someone voting their entire career in favor of kittens and puppies, then one day someone attaches an amendment in favor of kittens and puppies to a larger bill authorizing using baby pandas for destructive medical testing and then when they vote against the bill saying "HE VOTED AGAINST KITTENS AND PUPPIES!"


If you think that's ok you are part of the problem with politics in America, and the next time you feel like complaining about it kindly do so to a mirror. Shit like this is EXACTLY why people don't trust Clinton.

[Skinner]

80. He voted for it before he voted against it. (nt)

[Logical]

82. Really? Expand on that if you have more details. Nt

[Logical]

81. More made up stuff from boston bean, making hillary look worse! Nt

[dchill]

84. And how is that "auto industry" doing in Michigan?

How many jobs were saved? How many plants came back from abroad? Cui bono?
You are too clever!

[Onlooker]

94. Reasonably well

It's still one of the largest, if not the largest industry in Michigan, and there appears to be at least 10,000 jobs paying $45k or better that are available. The auto bailout seems to have been a good idea.

http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/industries-michigan-economy/2015/04/16/id/637632/

While Detroit will always be seen as one of the centers of the automotive industry, one non-profit group recently listed the city as one of the best in creating advanced manufacturing and new engineering jobs. “Detroit has been the poster child for industrial decline for so long that many have missed the quiet renaissance of the city’s manufacturing sector,” the group, Change the Equation, said in November 2014. “The advanced manufacturing jobs we examined have grown 37 percent since 2009, driven, no doubt, by the auto industry's recent return from the dead.”

http://www.indeed.com/q-Automotive-Manufacturing-l-Michigan-jobs.html

[dchill]

100. You're citing newsmax and a story about...

What Michigan has done since the auto industry dried up. FAIL.

[riversedge]

102. GLAD to see cnn clarify this also (bernie did NOT vote for final version of bill because he was

against bailing out the banks.

[procon]

103. It's a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Bills are a mix of good and bad policies all bundled together. There is no way to carve out just the issues you favor or vote against the ones you oppose; it's either all or nothing.

Dems swallowed a bitter pill in the bank bail out with the majority opting for the greater good to help millions of working Americans keep their jobs by supporting the auto industry, which in turn also propped up the flailing economy. Sanders narrow ideological stance has always concerned me. When he chose to vote against that bill to punish the banks instead of helping the workers, I am not persuaded that he can ever get around his long history of single interest voting.

[CdnExtraNational]

105. Hogwash

A bailout with no strings attached.

The Goldman Sachs wing of government won the day!

[procon]

109. So did the American workers.

Thanks to the politicians who voted for the bill. No doubt, the bill was an unbearably difficult decision, a "Sophie's Choice" that forced a moral dilemma on politicians to choose between two terrible options in what was essentially a no-win situation. Where was the greater good: Punishing bankers, or helping workers?

I would not have made the same choice Sanders did.

[randome]

111. And how would Sanders have fixed that? Answer: he couldn't. He was backed into a corner.

Under those circumstances, the smart thing to do is keep the greater good in mind.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

[CdnExtraNational]

114. Add an amendment to break up the banks that had already proved they were too big to fail!

Easy.

Or

Top CEO Tells Elizabeth Warren He Is Above The Law

[EndElectoral]

107. More mischaracterization. If you really want the truth read below. If not, enjoy distortion.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkiley5/2016/03/07/clintons-charges-that-sanders-did-not-support-auto-rescue-is-wrong/#6e390a9a582b

[B Calm]

115. Did Hillary vote for or against the IRAQ WAR?

[beedle]

116. Did Hillary vote FOR the bill

that gave nearly a trillion dollars to criminal bankers that ruined the economy, then took the money and used it to pay themselves bonuses instead of lending it out to the people and small businesses that needed it?

Did she vote FOR the bill that now has the same criminals paying her hundreds of millions in "campaign contributions', and payouts for secret speeches?

And yes, Obama did it too ... that's a bad decision on Obama's part and in no way excuses Clinton.