Cantwell Votes Main St. Credit Against Bernanke
Maria Cantwell was one of the 11 Senate Democrats who voted against the confirmation of Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve yesterday. Explaining her vote, Cantwell referred to the trickle-down approach to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout.
Over a year since the bailout began, the trickle from big banks and Wall Street financial firms still hasn’t reached the economy that most Americans deal with. Credit for small business owners is still tight, restricting job growth in the entrepreneurial economy. Senator Cantwell cited this “Main Street” credit shortage, even as government bailout funds were supposed to create liquidity, as prime among her reasons to oppose Bernanke’s re-appointment as Fed Chair.
“My constituents want to know why it is that it was easy to figure out how, with loans and assets and the credit activity of the Fed, over $1 trillion could be pumped into AIG at 100 cents on the dollar and yet small business owners in the State of Washington – and my guess is around the country – basically had capital cut from right under them,” Cantwell said.
Cantwell got specific, referring to particular businesses in her home state that had been hurt by the selfish refusal of large, private financial institutions to spread liquidity that had been provided to them by the American people. She spoke of Vancouver Iron and Steel, a local restaurant, and a small community bank.
In politics, the economy is always local. No matter how well the stock market is doing, the political recession won’t be over until the benefits of the bailout spread nationwide. The policies of Bernanke, and the Obama Administration as a whole, have yet to achieve that larger success.
