The Big Bank Bailout Bill?

[GinaMaria]

http://factcheck.org/2010/02/the-big-bank-bailout-bill/

We just saw this ad and looked up the Committee for Truth in Politics (they have no website) and have run negative and false ads in the past. This is their latest.


The Big Bank Bailout Bill?
February 3, 2010
A third-party group, the Committee for Truth in Politics, is out with an ad blasting the House’s "Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act." The group, which has no Web site and has made no disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, was created by a North Carolina GOP operative, according to National Public Radio, and is represented by lawyer James Bopp, who sued the FEC on the grounds that the group shouldn’t have to file any kind of spending report to that agency.

The ad has run in 35 markets in Arkansas, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a Kantar Media Solution.

The ad, in minute-long and 30-second versions, claims in on-screen graphics that the “financial reform bill” amounts to " new $4 trillion bailout for banks. If they fail. Again. $4,000,000,000,000.
snip

Does it? Not exactly. The bill (H.R. 4173), which passed the House with no Republican support, does say that "in unusual and exigent circumstances" the Federal Reserve can, with approval from an oversight council and the secretary of the Treasury, loan money to help prop up financial entities. And such monies are capped at $4 trillion. But the Federal Reserve already had such authority — with no stipulated cap on the amount it could loan. And banks that "fail," as the ad says, could be dissolved by regulators, according to another provision in the bill. Any money needed for the dissolution would come from a $150 billion fund formed at least partly by fees collected from large financial institutions.

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My understanding is this adds to the law by putting a cap on the $ amount and adds oversight protection. It improves what we currently have. Currently they can lend any amount without oversight. Now, 4 trillion may be too much, not enough or just right (let the debates begin), but it is a cap where none existed before. The oversight and approvals for lending are new as well. This is more protection than we've had, so it is not a permanent bank bailout bill, it's a step in the right direction.

There's a lot more about this wacky committee if you google it. They don't feel they need to report their funding. Michelle Backman's name is associated to it in another article. Seems to be a group to watch.


Peace,
GM