Mitchell challenges Bilirakis over federal bailout plan

Tampa lawyer and Democratic congressional candidate Bill Mitchell said Wednesday he wants to see Wall Street held accountable for the $700-billion bailout proposed by the Bush administration last week.

He also wants to see relief for homeowners facing foreclosure and reforms to the bond-rating system for mortgage-backed securities.

In a statement sent to Bay Buzz that also highlighted Mitchell's master's degree in economics (University of California, Berkeley), the Democratic challenger said his Republican opponent in the race for U.S. House District 9, Gus Bilirakis, “can’t be trusted to get our economy back on track.”

Mitchell, 61, questioned Bilirakis’ votes against the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which includes provisions for foreclosure assistance, and H.R. 3915, designed to curtail predatory lending practices.

“My opponent votes the wrong way when it comes to fixing our economy and keeping Florida families in their homes. My opponent said no to aiding homeowners and the state of Florida, and he said no to cracking down on unethical mortgage brokers. With that record, we can’t trust him to vote the right way and turn our economy around,” Mitchell said in the statement.

Rita Farlow, Times staff writer

*

Comments

Bilirakis" economic plan: Have Daddy give you his Congressional seat, then go to Congress and get rated one of the least effective Congressmen in Washington. Bilirakis will lose (and deservedly so) in November!

Bilirakis votes against foreclosure assistance for working families but for tax cuts for the wealthy. He has been a disaster!

Bilirakis has been excellent to your wallet.....if you are one of his campaign contributors! He has been a complete joke!

Hey morons, wake up! You shouldn't have taken out a mortgage you couldn't afford.

Stop blaming everyone but those who bit off more than they could chew.

Now, I, John Q reponsible citizen will bail them out for their idiocy.

We can't play politics with this one!

[GOPFL]

Here is a guaranteed way to stay in one's home...pay your mortgage! It is not the government's role to keep people in their homes. They shouldn't have taken out a mortgage they couldn't afford.

[AJS]

Bill Mitchell's campaign plan...say he is a Vietnam Veteran without ever having stepped foot in that country. Wait, I forgot, his Sailors were affected so it affected him; therefore, he is a Vietnam Vet. Good plan.....(insert sarcasm anywhere above)

Signed,

Actual Combat Veteran,
Supporting Congressman Bilirakis

Vote Local!

[Dan]

Vote for whomever you please. Mr. Mitchell is to be commended for his achievement of a MA or MS degree in Economics, even though it was from the principled academic bastion known as Berkeley. All my fellow commentors, please calm down. These are historic times that require decisionmaking without emotion, fear and panic. There must be other viable methods available to correct the credit mess, yet no one in power is giving other options serious analysis. Mr. Mitchell, communicate your ideas through the elected congressional members of your party. Representative Bilirakis can do the same in Washington. The fact is that neither of you can fix this mess unilaterally, which makes Mr. Mitchell's criticisms more than somewhat irrelevant.

[Free Market? For Whom?]

Mr. Mitchell's comments are very much to the point. The politics of denial and ignorance practiced by spoon-feed elected officials like Mr. Bilirakis are irresponsible and dangerous and the consequences are the mess we left.

Bilirakis can't get away from the facts: 1. he voted against helping struggling homeowners
2.he is rated one of the least effective members in Congress.

Bilirakis supports bailouts for "fat cats" on Wall Street but he actually voted "NO" to help working-class people on Main Street.

Bilirakis voted AGAINST stopping predatory lending practices and now he wants the middle-class to bailout predatory lenders.

[Larry the Cable Guy!]

Y'all leave the waterhead alone, he can't help it he's a tard!

[Chris Brudy]

GOPFL,
In normal times, people who couldn't pay their mortgages didn't get the loans in the first place. However, in the age of Republican deregulation, the Comptroller of the Currency, a neo con Republican, informed all state governments to stop regulating the mortgage origination industry, or face financial punishment. Mortgage brokers went on a rampage, making thousands on loans they knew wouldn't be repaid. The brokers didn't care, because they could profit simply by selling the soon to be worthless mortgages to Republican controlled Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were buying up all the mortgages they could find in order to bundle them up and sell them to deregulated investment bankers for use in "backing-up" various "opaque" mortgage based securities. Those securities then were sold to pension funds, insurance companies, and the rest of us suckers. Everything was beautiful for the Republicans: They could make it coming and going, at least until it collapsed. By then, the profits could be converted to Euros and stashed in European banks. And not to worry, since Congress could be pressured into saving the bankers in the name of keeping credit available to honest businesses.
We and our children will pay for all this looted wealth, in the form of lower living standards.
So, I don't want to hear anymore regurgitated talk radio nonsense from any of you invincibly stupid McCain backers, but I know I will.
Did you know it was a proven fact that the people who are the most sure of their facts and opinions are also the most likely to be wrong? Proven fact, if it matters to you neos.

[Chris Brudy]

Whoops. Double Post. Where did Gus go to school, anyway?

Hey Brudy - You dems are some piece of work. BTW, it was your buddy dems that insisted and voted on deregulation. Go look up the votes.

Brudy-
Gus Bilirakis obtained a B.A. in political science from U.F. in 1986 and his J.D. from Stetson in 1989.

Fisher - FRB of Dallas (from speech yesterday in NYC)

"But I digress. The problem that has been ailing capital markets and, by extension, the economy has not been the fed funds rate. It has been and remains risk aversion and uncertainty about counterparty risk and capital adequacy."

Exactly.

1. Level III assets must be fully disclosed along with all formula and models for their marks, quarterly, in the 10Q/10K.
2. Derivatives must all be moved to a regulated exchange with a central counterparty to guarantee margin supervision. No exceptions.
3. Leverage must be reduced to no more than 12:1 across the system. No exceptions.

Encode these three points into law or regulation and what Mr. Fisher has identified (correctly) as the root of the problem disappears.

What I like about Gus is that he does not want to tax me into the situation that others have fallen into for a variety of reasons. I cannot afford to help or be forced to help them out because I am barely making it right now and have just enough savings to hold out for a while should I lose my job. Don't add more weight to ship barely staying afloat. And if the government just keeps printing money inflation is going to do a lot of us in. So, there is no easy way out.

There are many people who are going to have to pool their family resources, stick together and tough it out. That is what my wife and I did for quite a few years while we lived in a small apartment saving our money so we could actually be responsible in purchasing a house. I don't wish anyone ill will but there comes a time when your actions have consequences and you have to be responsible for them.

[AgentOrange]

I would like to suggest you read my post on what's really going on.

http://www.johnnyk4congress.com/blog/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=26

This whole thing is one bigtime manufactured crisis and not Mitchell nor Bilirakis are going to stop this. Get a clue.

A.O.

[District 9 Voter]

I have been reading what Mitchell has been saying about Gus Billirakis and I agree with the things he says Gus has done but to tell you the truth, he's no better they both are in the pockets of the big oil and big corporations so I want to tell the voters about a cadidate I found who is running against them and his name is John Kalimnios who from what I seen on his wesite he is just like me and 500,000 other voters in district 9 a person without ties to the big corporations and I am going to vote for him and so should you check him out at johnnyk4congress.com. this country is being destroyed by both the Dems. and Rep. and if we dont start sending people like ourselfs to Washington to fight for us we will not be the U.S.A. we will be the Broke and destoyed U.S.A. think about it B.D.A. even looks worst then it sounds.