Conservative
opposition to a federal bailout of financial institutions is over campaign
donations, not a desire to uphold sound market principles, according to CNBC.
CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent
John Harwood said Sept. 25 on “Squawk Box” that he had a conversation with “a
top Republican member of congress last night” who told him the resistance among
conservatives to the $700 billion bailout plan is in part due to Wall Street donations
to Democrats.
“A lot of our
guys have decided that we hate Wall Street … because they’re giving a lot of
money to Democrats right now,” Harwood said he was told by an unnamed source.
“We’ve talked
about how nice the bi-partisan coming together of the far left and the far right to
oppose this plan. It was heartwarming, right? That finally brought the fringe
elements of both sides together on this,” co-host Joe Kernan joked.
Political action committees of American
companies had contributed almost $214 million to the Democrats and Republicans
by late July, according to the Sept. 18 issue of The
Economist.
Even though the Democratic Party has not
historically kept step with the Republican Party on campaign contributions from
business, the magazine pointed out that for the first time in over two decades,
the cash was evenly divided with each party receiving roughly $107 million.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the ranking
member of the Senate Banking Committee, has loudly criticized the bailout plan.
Shelby
was quoted on the Politico.com blog “The
Crypt” Sept. 23 saying, “I don’t know if
the bill will pass … It could pass, because the Fed and Treasury secretary and
administration, they are going to scare a lot of people. But the best
disciplinarian of all is the marketplace. I believe if we didn’t do anything,
the market would correct it all.”
“What troubles me most is that we
have been given no credible assurances that this plan will work. We could very
well spend $700 billion and not resolve the crisis,” Shelby said, according to Reuters
Sept 23.
