Here's to Richard Shelby...

[orwell]

...the ranking republican on the Senate Banking Committee.

I rarely find my self agreeing with Senator Shelby from Alabama, but over the last few days he is one of the few legislators who has been sounding the alarm over the panic moves by Treasury, the Administration, and the Fed. He keeps bringing up the ad hoc nature of the crisis management and worries of the effect of this huge bailout on the taxpayers pocket book.

At least Shelby and Hagel are not blowing in the wind like so many other Republicon politicians. They have convictions and are willing to stick by them, even if it means bucking the party line. Whether or not you agree with them they are consistent, which seems to be a Con party rarity nowadays.

Shelby is on all the financial shows sounding the alarm bells over all these bailouts. He is basically saying that those who created this mess shouldn't be given a get out of jail free card. He says that if you are going to call yourself a capitalist system you have to allow even large firms to fail. By not doing so you eliminate the penalty for catastrophic risk (moral hazard).

The RTC bailout of the late 80's early 90's is a prime example of this. The current crisis we now face involves many of the same actions/players of the S&L crisis of that earlier period - including McCain and Gramm. All the bailout taught us was that big daddy government would cover up the criminal fraud when the scale reached the level that the entire financial system was at risk.

The only lesson for the career criminals becomes - go big or go home.

It's nice to see that some are not willing to abandon their core beliefs for political expediency. We need a lot more of that in this country.

[TwilightGardener]

1. Wasn't it Shelby and Hagel who created the legislation to increase

regulation of Fannie and Freddie in 2005 (both being on the Banking Committee), the bill that McCain ended up cosponsoring and is now trying to pretend was his idea?

[orwell]

5. That is correct...

...Here is an article from WaPo in 2005.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072202049.html

[orwell]

6. One other thing...

...according to this thread Shelby was the only Republican Senator to vote against the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall. Like I said in the original post, at least he is consistent.

Many of us opposed this travesty. Of course- now we all get to pay.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4037641

[YDogg]

2. shelby is a disgusting slumlord only trying to salvage his own paltry reputation, IMHO

[asjr]

4. Mine also. If Shelby was Christ in disguise I

still would not believe a word he said.

[Mnemosyne]

3. Shelby the Turncoat. puke. n/t