Jon finds his mojo

I received a letter from Senator Jon Tester. He doesn’t write often, but I am glad to hear he is doing well.

Dear Mark,

Yesterday executives from Goldman Sachs testified on Capitol Hill. Last quarter they made a profit of $3.29 billion dollars. At the same time, unemployment rates are nearly 20% in some parts of Montana. It’s time to put an end to the era of ‘profit before people’ firms like Goldman Sachs built on Wall Street.

Jon must have a concrete proposal. That’s great. We could use some non-clay feet in the Senate of the United States.

I asked some tough questions and held these executives’ feet to the fire because I’m absolutely committed to delivering what Montanans are demanding: accountability.

I hope that’s not all he did! Powerful people, after all, are often willing to adopt a submissive posture for the sake of a good picture. They allow people like Tester to grill them knowing that it is only for the cameras, and that the power roles are exactly opposite what they appear to be. It is a good perception management tool.

I voted against the bank and auto bailouts because it wasn’t fair that taxpayers be forced to foot the bill to save corporations that couldn’t survive on their own.

Never forget Bob’s Dole’s maxim: A man will never go wrong voting against something that is going to pass, or for something that is going to fail. It could be those votes were meaningless. Maybe not, but never assume.

Democrats in the Senate are working to make sure not a penny of taxpayer dollars are used to bail out another bank ever again.

Now that is odd! He is saying that what they did was wrong, and they should not have done it. And the bold action he is taking? Never do it again! That is so weak and mealy-mouthed that someone on his staff, whoever does his emails, ought to be fired.

We must end the dangerous era of ‘too-big-to-fail’ banks and financial institutions, implement real oversight on Wall Street, prevent waste and fraud, and stop the massive bonuses executives receive that reward the kind of tactics that got us into trouble in the first place.

Concrete proposals surely to follow. Surely. Someday.

But we can’t do it alone.

It’s past time for Republicans to join us in this effort and bring their ideas to the debate. Twice in as many days the Senate held a vote to begin debating Wall Street Reform, and both times every single Republican has voted against it.

Last I looked, the Democrats had 59 votes. When they wanted to pass a crappy health care bill, they pulled out all the stops, threatened and bribed people and lobbied well into the night. Now they are again sitting on their hands and whining. Maybe I’m missing something here, but we seem to be again in that area of politics where the parties appear to be at each other’s throats, but really working together.

Why in the world we would delay acting to rein in Wall Street after their reckless behavior and greed wrecked our economy?

As I’ve said, there are only two sides in this fight — for the people or for the investment firms and big banks.

Or your writers said that. I forget who. But until I see forceful action, like when you finally got that health care bill passed, I am going to assume that you are merely posturing.

You know where I stand, now the rest of the Senate needs to decide.

It looks like every Senator will get the chance to stand with working families over Wall Street when the Senate votes again. I hope that we can move forward at that time, and finally finish this job.

-Jon

From an evolutionary standpoint, as I read it, some of us are very good at detecting deception. It seems like a no-brainer here. Tester is putting up words that are merely meant to cover the fact that no action is being taken, no force is being used, and all of the persuasive tools that were used to pass that godawful health care bill (am I repeating myself?) are again on the shelf.

It is a false front meant to deceive us. Why is that so hard for Democrats to see?