Sometimes I wonder if people forget that Congress, not the President, is up for election next month. I'm the harshest critic around you'll find of Congress when our Congressional leaders do stupid things, but the situation is much more complex than 'blame Congress' (or it's cousin, 'blame the Senate') when we discuss the challenges we face. The Administration has been dragging its feet in a number of ways, too.
And when Congress calls them out on this, we should celebrate. Here's to praising Congressional Democrats when they do good things.
The F word, by the way, is fraud. Fraud is a core concept of Western political economy, the notion that purposeful misrepresentations are not just 'bad', but so awful that they constitute illegal conduct. Fraud is nothing new. People have been cooking the books and lying through their teeth for as long as humanity has known fire and language. You know how health insurance companies rescind policies? They call it fraud; that exception is still there in PPACA.
But what has happened over the past decade plus in the financial industry is one of themore explosive time periods in the history of fraud. The FBI described it as an epidemic - six years ago. These misrepresentations have happened in a variety of ways, from lenders fabricating information to get a mortgage loan started right on through to the other side of fabricating information to get the courts to foreclose on a house whose occupant is no longer able to pay that mortgage loan.
Concepts like due process and equality are fundamental to the rule of law. There is no tradeoff or compromise between expediency and equity; between means and ends. The process of entering into contracts and protecting property rights and so forth is the end itself. Broach these processes and you are engaging in activity that is tantamount to treason - you are actively undermining the American experiment. Justice without mercy is a cruel world, but so too is allowing willful, systemic subversion of the social order. There are about 2 million people in American prisons who pose less danger to society than the financial fraudsters still threatening our system.
Speaker Pelosi and a few dozen other California House Democrats have put these kinds of thoughts down, on paper, in writing - in much blander, more diplomatic language, of course - and sent them to the Attorney General's Office, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. [PDF of letter here, PDF of complaints here.] They are requesting that fraud be investigated.
Now, it is sad and unfortunate that years into the Republican Recession, there is much fraud that hasn't even been investigated, let alone prosecuted. But I'm ultimately optimistic that we will solve these problems. We have to. The ideal that is America quite literally depends upon it. It would have been easier to clean up our system last year, or the year before that, or the year before that. But we can still do it; we are not yet fully on the way to banana republic land.
The Presidency is neither imperial nor omnipotent. However, it most certainly does possess the power to investigate crimes, particularly those threatening the foundation of our economic and political system. Speaker Pelosi, the California Democratic Caucus, Senators Franken, Menendez, and Merkley, outgoing Senator (and incoming COP head) Kaufman, and others are absolutely right to call upon the Executive Branch and other entities which Congress has tasked with enforcing the nation's laws to actually enforce the nation's laws.
We don't have to worry about pragmatism and idealism. We don't have to worry about ponies and unicorns. We don't have to find 60 votes in the Senate. We just need to investigate areas of potential regulatory and criminal breaches. Wherever those investigations take us.
That won't solve all our problems. But it would sure be a step in the right direction. As the Representatives conclude their letter
It is time that banks are held accountable for their practices that have left too many homeowners without real help.
Here's to the next two years of Speaker Pelosi's leadership being dedicated to that sentiment.
Or, if you prefer video, here's Florida Representative Alan Grayson.
Crossposted at The Seminal at FDL.