[Peace-discuss] Fw: Bailout Petition - Thank You

[Jenifer Cartwright]

This just in from Bernie Sanders who also says this is far from over. Let's hope the optimistic among us are correct.
 --Jenifer

--- On Fri, 10/3/08, Senator Sanders <email_newsletter at sanders.senate.gov> wrote:

From: Senator Sanders <email_newsletter at sanders.senate.gov>
Subject: Bailout Petition - Thank You
To: jencart13 at yahoo.com
Date: Friday, October 3, 2008, 12:04 PM







       Issue October 03, 2008 - http://sanders.senate.gov





Dear friend,
Thank you for co-signing a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urging that any bailout be fiscally responsible, include a major recovery package, re-establish obviously needed regulation of financial institutions, and end the dangers posed by companies that are ‘too  big to fail.’
I was amazed, and greatly heartened, by the tremendous number of people who signed the letter. When we delivered it to the secretary’s office Wednesday, it had more than  48,000 signatures, including yours.
Unfortunately, Wednesday was also the day that the Senate passed a bailout package.  Because  it did not have the strong provisions we called for in our letter to Secretary Paulson,  I voted against the bailout.  
Before the Senate passed the bill, there was a vote on what was probably the key provision in our letter: a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for individuals. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue over five years, but wouldn’t cost 99.7 percent of taxpayers a single penny.   On the Senate floor, I talked about our letter. (To read about it or watch excerpts, click here or here.) I talked about how the bailout of Wall Street banks and financial firms should be paid for by those who benefitted from the greed and excess of Wall Street, not by middle-class Americans. I am sorry to report that the amendment did not pass. 
This is not the end of our fight, but the beginning.  I look forward to working with you again as we move forward in asserting that the needs of our nation’s middle class, its working families, should come ahead of the needs of the financial services industry and those who profited off Wall Street excesses.  
I would like to stay in touch. I hope you will be interesting in receiving occasional updates on what the federal government is doing – and what it should be doing – to address the serious economic and financial concerns ahead of us. If you prefer not to receive more of my e-mails (they will be modest in number), click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this page.
Thanks again for co-signing the letter.  You helped raise 48,000 voices of reason in an important national debate.
 

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