While I can appreciate the sentiment behind Ron Rosenbaum's piece at PJM:
It’s his “malefactors of great wealth speech,” it’s what presidential moral leadership is and should be. It’s Obama denouncing as “shameful” the greedhead mentality that has broken the lives of people who believed in the work ethic and the American dream so the plutocrats could wallow in obscene wealth.
as for heaping the praise on Obama, get back to me when he says the same thing about this.
Six Democratic members of Congress enjoyed a Caribbean junket sponsored by Citigroup after Congress had approved the $700 billion bailout of financial services firms in October.
The National Legal and Policy Center, a watchdog group, has asked Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, for a formal review of the Citigroup’s sponsorship of the trip by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and five others.
The NLPC says the trip violated House rules.
The purported purpose of the Nov. 6-9 junket was to attend the Caribbean Multi-Cultural Business Conference on the island of St. Maarten, but “the primary purpose of attending for most participants appeared to be to take a vacation,” according to the NLPC, which had a representative at the event.
The NLPC said in a statement: “The ‘lead sponsor’ was Citigroup, which contributed $100,000. Citigroup was certainly aware that it would be a major recipient of bailout funds. It was also aware that its fortunes had become increasingly reliant on Congressional actions.
The "people" deplore the Congress. The "voters" keep reelecting them. The only answer I can see is term limits.
Posted by: Fred Beloit | Saturday, January 31, 2009 at 12:42 PM