.
You say you want to "fight" for regular folks. Good. Then over the next 36 hours have your staff work with allies in the House and Senate to craft simple Bills -- to be introduced by 12:00 Noon Eastern Time Wednesday morning -- that will do the following:
1. Tax TARP-recipient corporation executive and manager bonuses by 100% for 5 years while freezing or lowering all current bank, investment bank, credit card and mortgage bank/company fees and interest rates for the same amount of time. You may lose the legislative battle, but if you fight like hell for it, you'll win the political one.
2. As a companion Bill to the one above, cap all credit card interest rates at 18% and tell the credit card companies and banks and their whores on Capitol Hill to go to hell when they start to whine. You may lose the legislative battle, but if you fight like hell for it, you'll win the political one.
more . . .
.
3. As a companion Bill to the ones above, cap all ATM transaction fees at $1.00 and tell the banks and their whores on Capitol Hill to go to hell when they start to whine. You may lose the legislative battle, but if you fight like hell for it, you'll win the political one.
4. As a companion Bill to the ones above, introduce a Bill (one or two pages in length) that extends Medicare to age 35. Soak the fucking Wall Streeters to pay for it. Tell said Wall Streeters, Insurance Robber Barons, Pharma and their whores on Capitol Hill to go to hell when they start to whine. You may lose the legislative battle, but if you fight like hell for it, you'll win the political one.
5. Fire Rahm "Triangulation" Emmanuel. By the time you give your State of the Union Speech.
Do some things alone those lines and we'll start to believe that you want to fight for the 98% of Americans who don't make 7-figure salaries, and all those 10s of millions of Americans who campaigned, gave, and voted for you. Otherwise, please shut your "fightin'-words-but-no-action" pie hole.
Respecfully,
BenGoshi
UPDATE: To the whiners and those who still believe that Obama's The Zen Master of 11-Dimensional Chess, I can only say that I'm just suggesting a non-milquetoasty way forward. Of course, you're more than welcome to believe that empty rhetoric and kowtowing to the likes of Max Baucus is the way to go. How's that worked out for ya so far?
UPDATE II: Looks like I'm not the only one who sees things (as they've been so far) this way.
For those who have the vapors about my hoping the President will actually do something to match his past week's populist rhetoric, I think the blog you're looking for is called "Free Republic."
____________________________