Nader to Congress: Slow Down. Haste makes Waste
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 12:00:00 AM
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Toby Heaps, 202-441-6795, toby@votenader.org
Ralph Nader, whose consumer vigilance dates back to 1965, issued the following statement this afternoon:
Nader to Congress: Slow Down. Haste makes Waste.
Over the years, every time Congress acted in haste, it was an unsuccessful boondoggle, from the $3 billion synthetic fuels legislation of 1980 to the 2002 Iraq War Resolution.
The latest reckless proposal, a $700 billion blank check to bailout the financial industry, is the goliath of domestic panic legislation.
It's a triple whammy on the American people as taxpayers, consumers and workers.
Without public hearings, without civil justice safeguards, accountability and Congressional oversight, without comprehensive regulation and shareholder governance, this three-page bill will be the mother of terrible unintended consequences.
Of all the insults Bush's monarchy has ever hurled at Congress, a supposedly co-equal branch of government, this one shatters the bedrock principle of separation of powers under our Constitution and replaces it with blanket deregulation of power for the White House.
Rather than race home to run for re-election, members of Congress should do what they were sent to Washington to do: carefully draft the legislation that will serve the needs of Main Street and Elm Street, not the greed, fraud and recklessness of Wall Street.
