Bailing Themselves Out Of Their Responsibilities

For the past two years since the midterm elections the Democrats in Congress have refused to use the power of the purse to restrain Bush and his wars.

Now it appears that they will have no problem using the power of the purse to bailout out Bush's friends while at the same time virtually wrecking their own power of the purse to pay for and implement any progressive programs for the forseeable future.

Just whose side are these people on, anyway?

Ellen Frank is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, a member of the Dollars & Sense collective. She is the author of The Raw Deal: How Myths and Misinformation about Deficits, Inflation, and Wealth Impoverish America , was published in 2004.

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. Ellen Frank believes that this is a terrible bill, passed without sufficient discussion, and that it has been forced upon us through scaremongering and image conjuring of a new depression, something Ellen feels the US is not vulnerable to in the way it was in 1929. She also explains her fear that this bill will handcuff future administrations from implementing progressive government programs.