McCain: For the Geithner Plan « The Washington Independent
Jul 31, 2020141.8K Shares2.8M Views
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) just gave an address on “generational theft” at the Heritage Foundation and semi-endorsed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s plan for purchasing toxic assets from financial institutions. “It’s progress,” McCain said, generating a few sighs in the packed room. He opposes any more TARP money going out without more oversight, but wants to give Geithner’s plan a chance. His preference is that banks be “taken over, their managers suffer for their failure, and their assets sold off,” another comment that didn’t light up the room.
The speech rather quickly dovetailed into an attack on earmarks. “I’m aware that earmarks consume a very small proportion of the budget,” McCain said. The reason to focus on them is that they’re “deeply, deeply offensive” to Americans who are tightening their belts.
McCain also argued that the GOP wasn’t a “party of no,” (they had proposed smaller, tax-cut focused stimuli) and he ruled out any attempt to to use the budget reconciliation process to pass health care, education, or environmental reform. Doing that would debase “the normal 60 vote requirement that makes the Senate the unique environment that it is.”
Paula M. Graham
Reviewer
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