A $500 Billion Corporate Bailout? With Few Conditions? Katie Porter Wants Oversight Now.
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Source: huff post
03/27/2020 06:50 pm ET
A $500 Billion Corporate Bailout? With Few Conditions? Katie Porter Wants Oversight Now.
I want to be crystal clear: The Treasury can move this money in an hour, said the California Democrat.
By Jennifer Bendery
WASHINGTON ― Whether or not they realized it, lawmakers just passed a $2 trillion stimulus bill that lets Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin give $500 billion to corporations without any particularly meaningful oversight on how it gets spent, which sectors will be treated as a bigger priority for getting financial help, or when the money will be repaid.
Billions of those dollars could begin flowing within an hour of President Donald Trump signing the bill into law, which he did Friday evening.
This has been keeping Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) up at night. That, and a nasty virus that seemed a lot like COVID-19, though she tested negative for it on Friday.
Porter knows a thing or two about strong oversight of taxpayer money: In 2012, then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris appointed her to oversee banks implementation of $9.5 billion in mortgage settlement reforms.
An attorney who studied under Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at Harvard Law School, Porter has also drawn attention for her sharp questioning of bank executives in the House Financial Services Committee. In March 2019, she caught Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan contradicting what his corporate lawyers had argued in court, saying that statements he had previously made vowing transparency were corporate puffery. Porter made news again in April 2019 with her questioning of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, pressing him on how a Chase bank teller should make up a $567 shortfall between her monthly budget and paycheck.
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/katie-porter-coronavirus-stimulus-corporate-oversight-treasury_n_5e7cfe6cc5b6cb08a92a52b8
Would be wonderful if Katie Porter was in charge of the oversight.
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jls4561
(1,241 posts)and they are victorious (oh please, oh please, oh please) I think Gavin Newsom should appoint Katie Porter to the vacant Senate seat.
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,536 posts)I thought that was a big concern of the Democrats -- giving Trump a $500 billion reelection slush fund. Like he said when asked about it, "I'll do the oversight."
Wasn't that in the final bill?
CousinIT
(9,151 posts)and that HE is the only person with any oversight of the $500 billion. He basically said "Fuck you" to congress on that.
LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,536 posts)Bengus81
(6,907 posts)That was exactly the Dems hold up on passage--and not letting the Trump family LOOT the fund for his own use for their hotels.
CousinIT
(9,151 posts)bucolic_frolic
(42,654 posts)Many businesses large and small are shuttered in whole or part. There is no cash flow, no revenues. They are all zombies. That realization will hit the markets at the same time as the next 2-3 months of coronavirus fallout. Cash flow is in refrigeration.
seta1950
(932 posts)Shed be fantastic consumer protection czar
FakeNoose
(32,328 posts)This money will disappear into Chump's offshore bank account in no-time! Katie Porter is already onto him.
OldManTarHeel
(435 posts)then those of the party negotiating this bill have failed the US taxpayer.
Omaha Steve
(99,055 posts)Analysis.