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They robbed Americans of their future. They cost perhaps a generation of hard-working people a decent pay check. And they left millions of people with empty 401(k)s, with some seniors being booted from their retirement homes because there was no money left. And, yet, they still don’t get it–or maybe they truly don’t care.
Wall Street is threatening to sue the president over his quite modest proposal to tax the banks who created the greatest economic crisis in the past 50 years:
Wall Street’s main lobbying arm has hired a top Supreme Court litigator to study a possible legal battle against a bank tax proposed by the Obama administration, on the theory that it would be unconstitutional, according to three industry officials briefed on the matter.
The president’s response has been:
Indeed, President Obama urged the financial lobby to stand down when he introduced the tax proposal last week: "Instead of sending a phalanx of lobbyists to fight this proposal or employing an army of lawyers and accountants to help evade the fee, I suggest you might want to consider simply meeting your responsibilities."
To underscore, the president’s proposal was quite modest, amounting to a pittance and far from what I and others support–a much broader, permanent financial transactions tax to tamp down speculation and pay for the very society (roads, schools, transportation and communications systems) that Wall Street benefits from.
But, the greed is pervasive. Wall Street still doesn’t get it.
Please join us at lunchtime on January 21st in front of Goldman Sachs to let the financial elites know that Americans will no longer sit quietly and allow un-American and unpatriotic behavior that bankrupts our country. Noon-2 pm–85 Broad St, Manhattan, New York (and if you can’t come, spread the word)
Americans are living through the most difficult economic crisis in the last 50 years. One in five Americans does not have decent, full-time paying work.
Goldman Sachs’ behavior is un-American and unpatriotic.
Come rally on behalf of America. Come rally to demand a new economic system which rewards all Americans, not just a few.
Bring your signs and banners.
INITIAL CONVENORS:
Progressive Democrats of America
Democrats.com
Democracy for America
Jonathan Tasini For U.S. Senate
20 Comments
Great post – wish I were in NYC to join you!
Are you familiar with FDR’S 1936Madison Square Garden speech?
You should be, if you are not already.
Amazing in it’s parallels to today’s issues.
Here’s a tiny excerpt-pay special attention to the last sentence. (Maybe even make it your battlecry):
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace‹business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”
FDR Madison SquareGarden,1936
FDR Madison Square Garden Speech 1936They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is …
history.sandiego.edu/gen/text/us/fdr1936.html – Cached – Similar
The Obama DoJ will just claim sovereign immunity or state secrets, and block the case from adjudication completely. It works with 4th and 5th Amendment violations, and international treaty violations after all.
“They still don’t get it.” – They don’t get it because, thanks to our national politicians, they don’t have to get it. Most Senators, many Reps, the Administration, and the Fed all collude to protect and increase the wealth of a relatively small number of banking executives, regardless of what is happening to Main Street. President Obama took a long time to announce this tax proposal, and who knows what would actually be voted into law. I won’t hold my breath.
The banks, insurance companies, etc., get away with what the federal government allows them to get away with.
Yes, they don’t get it because the majority of American politicians and even public servants are in their pockets. A gullible and distracted public isn’t much of a deterrent either. they know all about Tiger, football, video games and the latest People gossip, but most cannot name their congressperson and don’t know anything about the corrupt banking system. Keep hitting them hard with this and maybe we’ll get to some that will listen. Cheers.
Keep up the great work, Jonathan! Let the bastards know who’s boss!
Having read this after it happened, I hope it was a successful turnout Jonathan. Wish I could have been in NYC with you.
Um, the event will occur 3 days from now,on the 21 st of January,2010.
Please join us at lunchtime on January 21st in front of Goldman Sachs to let the financial elites know that Americans will no longer sit quietly and allow un-American and unpatriotic behavior that bankrupts our country. Noon-2 pm–85 Broad St, Manhattan, New York (and if you can’t come, spread the word)
Is it, or is it not, a bill of attainder? Obama’s tax, that is.
If Wallstreet wants to get tough then just move those clowns back to mark to market accounting. They’d be insolvant and thus nationalized, problem solved.
They get it just fine. Just fine indeed.
Indeed. Shameless a$$holes.
I wish I could join you all in front of Goldman Sachs on Thursday.
I’ll be sure to spread the word and provide links. Thank you, Jonathan!
Nope. I don’t think taxes can be bills of attainder.
But, eCAHN, this is shoot-from-the-hip response – it’s been a long time since I studied these things.
I wonder if you meant ex post facto law? In the sense that it’s being imposed after the action (earning income) has already occurred?
Attainder refers to penalties for criminal behavior. While we might be calling the banksters’ behavior criminal, we mean in a moral sense. A tax is in no way criminalizing or punishment for criminal behavior.
I asked the Q because the head of some financial corp group was on cspan WJ and claimed it was. Claimed it targeted 50 specific companies. This from memory as I was going back & forth, he was hard to listen to for very long.
OMG.
.
Gee, wonder why…maybe because he didn’t know what he was talking about either…
I’d say the basic impulse here is marking territory. As in: You don’t get to do this.
They don’t get the anger out here in the world beyond DC and Wall Street, I suspect, but that’s as much because they don’t care as because they don’t know. Right now, with Congress and the President protecting them, they don’t have to.
good eye nathan, its about time that claim of privelidge worked for something worthwhile
Oh they get it, it is you Obama who doesn’t get it. It was you who let them have their way and now there is nothing stopping them from doing it again.
A bill of attainder is a legislative act that declares a person (or a specific group) guilty of a crime and imposes punishment without trial.
A tax law (my area of work) theoretically could be fashioned to be a bill of attainder, but that’s not the case here.