Rather than quote the CNN transcript, here's what Kaptur said on the House floor on January 15th. (Emphasis is mine.) It's lengthy but well worth the read.
I know what you're thinking, and you're right. Like the dog in the riddle -- "because he can" -- hordes of opportunistic homeowners who made unprincipled, ill-advised or sloppy decisions will game the system, jumping onto Kaptur's bandwagon as a way of shirking their financial responsibility."Madam Speaker, I am glad I was here on the floor to respond to the prior Member who felt compelled to say that he thought the Wall Street bailout was working. I would like to know what evidence he has to prove that, since we have no forensic accounting of what the Wall Street banks that got all this money did with the money.
"I went before our Rules Committee and I proposed a very simple amendment. My amendment was that before we give one more dime of the people's money, we require the Treasury to do a forensic accounting of every bit of money that was sent up there to Wall Street. And I was denied my amendment.
"There is no Member of this Congress that can say with accuracy, including the gentleman who just spoke, that he knows where the money is, because, you know what? They haven't told us. All you know is what you have read in the newspapers, and how can we extend more money from the American people when we don't even know what happened to the money that went out the door?
"So you can say whatever you want and create a fiction, but the fact is that foreclosures are going up across this country. That bill that was passed last year was supposed to help people hang onto their homes. In Ohio, foreclosures have gotten worse every month.
"What I am telling people right now is, stay in your homes. If the American people, anybody out there is being foreclosed, don't leave, because I will tell you what. If you had a smart lawyer like those banks up there on Wall Street can get, they would take you into court and they couldn't find the mortgage. They couldn't find the mortgage.
"So why should any American citizen be kicked out of their homes in this cold weather? In Ohio it is going to be 10 or 20 below zero. Don't leave your home. Because you know what? When those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her finger on that mortgage, you don't have that mortgage, and you are going to find they can't find the paper up there on Wall Street.
"So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave. In Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Illinois and all these other places our people are being treated like chattel, and this Congress is stymied. We have the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and our committees are muzzled. Power is given to one chairman or one person.
"We are all equal here. We have a right to be heard. The concerns of our constituents have a right to be registered in the committees of this House, not choked down as what is happening here today. It is just a tragedy. And if we don't fix the economic cure, it is going to get worse, and the cure is to go after the home foreclosure crisis.
"Who does that? Treasury? No. That is absolutely the wrong place. We need the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Securities and Exchange Commission empowered to do the real estate workouts on books across this country. Those are the normal institutions that are used. And then you have got HUD there now with FHA that can take these mortgages once they are refinanced.
"But that is not what is happening across our country. There is no help for the homeowner. That whole section they talked about today, Help for Homeowners over at HUD, nobody has even benefited. We said last year they wouldn't, and that is exactly what has happened.
"So I say to the American people, stay in your homes. You have earned them. And don't you get out until you get a really good lawyer who can find your mortgage up there on Wall Street. Because, you know what? They won't be able to find it, and therefore they can't prove you should be evicted."
Come-lately conservatives may see Kaptur's suggestion that taxpaying homeowners should benefit as yet another step down the slippery slope of socialism. For a moment, I'm going to allow for that popular neo-con argument -- you know, the one that says that the opposite of socialism is capitalism.Those who lean on this simple-minded distinction contend that our national economy rises and falls with free enterprise -- profit and loss, success and failure -- and that much, at least, is true. Pulling on one end of the capitalist rope is supply (providers of goods and services) and, on the other end, demand (consumers).
Taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts favor the supply side, exclusively. What's more, because the TARP demands absolutely no accountability from corporations benefiting from legislated largesse, our government effectively has greased the demand end of the rope.
Kaptur, in addition to doing exactly what she was elected to do, reminds us that it's time for The People to yank back on the rope -- hard.
If, as Kaptur correctly observes, our elected representatives refuse to reflect the will of their constituents, then We, The People, must assert our power -- ten months from now at the polls, certainly, but also immediately within the economic system. If Congress won't insist on accountability from bailed-out corporations, then We, The People will.
This isn't about expecting our government (or anyone else) to save us -- quite the opposite. And it's not some sort of populist retaliation against fat cats with seven-figure bonuses, lavish offices and private jets. Fundamentally, it's about seizing our own rightful, capitalistic entitlement.
As citizen-taxpayers, we've been both neglecting our responsibilities and forfeiting our essential role in the workings of our economy. Corporations survive and thrive only if we buy their goods and services -- and if we don't, they fail. While each of us is accountable for the obligations we assume, we also have every right to demand that the supply side lives up to its obligations.
Just as we can stop electing representatives who don't reflect our will, so we can withhold our business from corporations that are poor stewards of our tax (or commercial) dollars. As we're expected to know and abide by the terms of agreements we make, so we can require that businesses do the same.
Capitalism, see, cuts both ways. We're not at the effect of corporate America -- we hold ultimate power over it.
Kaptur's exhortation that homeowners facing foreclosure demand that their banks "produce the note" is an assertion of that power. Her impassioned pleas for common decency, accountability and taxpayer benefit are in the best tradition of this representative republic. She's fired the first shots in what could become a citizen-taxpayer rebellion against forces that have turned our economic power structure on its head.
If some undeserving, irresponsible citizens enjoy the spoils, well, so be it. That's a small price to pay for The People's triumph, a victory that's long overdue.
