RSS
Home
Third-party candidates take aim at federal bailout
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
.jpg)
Libertarian Bob Barr
Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr criticized the proposed $700 billion financial recovery plan under negotiation between Congress and the White House, calling it a distortion of the free market system.
Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia, said in a statement that the Bush administration's recent rescue efforts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, investment house Bear Stearns and insurance giant A.I.G. amounts to a new kind of socialism that will drive the national debt past $10 trillion.
"Capitalism involves losses as well as profits," said Barr, who is currently on 47 state ballots for the fall presidential election. "When government tries to insulate businesses and investors from paying for their mistakes, we all lose. In a Barr administration, there would be no more corporate bailouts or takeovers."
Barr spokesman Andrew Davis acknowledged in an interview yesterday that it will be difficult for the Libertarians to actually capture the White House on Nov. 4. But he said the Barr campaign hopes to insert Libertarian principles into the presidential debate in hopes of influencing the policy discussion and eventually having Lilbertarian values adopted by the major parties.
"This is what third parties have always done," Davis said.
Meanwhile, the Green Party and its presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney, are saying that the "financial meltdown" surrounding Wall Street can be solved with "far-reaching Green solutions."
According to a statement released this week, McKinney and top Green officials are arguing that the Bush administration's bailout plan is an admission that "deregulation and other 'free-market' solutions are a recipe for disaster."
McKinney released a plan that among other things calls for:
- Closing tax loopholes and repealing the Bush tax cuts for top income earners
- Placing caps on CEO salaries and bonuses
- Asserting the U.S. government's assumption of equity/ownership over financial institutions that are bailed out with taxpayer money
- Imposing a moratorium on foreclosures and eliminating all adjustable rate mortgages
- Promoting an economy that is based on sustainability rather than on lending and borrowing
McKinney is on 32 state ballots and has official write-in status in several others. Her main goal is to get 5 percent of the national vote, which would qualify the Greens for federal funding in the next presidential election.
.jpg)
Green Cynthia McKinney
