America and Apple Pie

Jon Stewart interviewed Bill Clinton last night on The Daily Show after showing CNN's inane attempt to conceptualize $700 billion dollars, the price tag for the Wall Street bailout that Henry Paulson is pushing before Congress.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's brilliant $700 billion plan could buy every single American 2,000 McDonald's apple pies.

Click here to see the segment.

Of course, the food metaphor worked with former President Clinton!

But it shouldn't work with the American people.

I was at a meeting yesterday with two retired women. Remember, women make only 76 cents to every men's dollar, and these women, both pioneers in the women's movement, made even less throughout their careers. One woman is a widow. With the price of gas, the rising cost of her contribution to health insurance, and the cost of medicine, she is worried that she might have to cut her volunteer work, because she can't afford to drive everyplace anymore.

The other woman is married and still needs to augment her pension with parttime work.

This is how the Wall Street meltdown is affecting real people. But not just retirees. Every house that goes into foreclosure diminishes the value of the other homes in a neighborhood. Every house that goes into foreclosure displaces another family, makes another child insecure.

My husband passed a three block long line in midtown Manhattan yesterday: young people trying to get into a job fair.

We must make sure that any Congressional bailout plan includes accountability. Let's find out just how much fraud was involved in marketing and selling these mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, and how much fraud was involved in bundling them as securities. Then let's prosecute the bastards for their greed and illegality. Let's make sure that everything the government does to shore up the financial markets has transparency. We need to see restrictions on salary and on the use of government power, too.

Since when should we trust Henry Paulson to solve this mess when his leadership at Goldman Sachs, and then his "nothing is wrong with American financial markets" attitude got us into this current crisis?

Deja vous to 911: do nothing and then grab power in the aftermath. Let's not forget we have a constitution and a method for enacting law and enforcing it.