Senate Weighs Economic Sanctions Against Iran

By Learned Foote- Talk Radio News Service

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is weighing the possibility of levying economic sanctions against Iran. During a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, the committee discussed ways to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Nicholas Burns, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and former State Department official during the Bush administration, said that Iran’s hotly contested presidential election has compromised the power of its government, and that America “should seek to diminish its strength further.” He said that “Americans should seek to maintain our position as the dominant power in the Middle East, because our influence is positive in that region, and Iran’s is not.”

Burns said that President Obama has generally followed former President’s Bush “basic strategy” by trying to end the nuclear weapons project in Iran through negotiations before applying “draconian” economic sanctions. He said that he did not believe negotiations alone will successfully end Iran’s nuclear program, but said that financial, economic, and energy sanctions would be more effective.

Dr. Suzanne Maloney, a Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute, discussed the economic outlook in Iran. She said the country faces “serious economic problems: double-digit inflation, power shortages, a tumbling stock market, stubbornly high unemployment rates,...increasing dependence on volatile resource revenues, and perhaps most ominously for the Iranian leadership, a rising tide of popular indignation about economic frustrations.”

The panelists agreed that unilateral sanctions will not be effective unless other countries join in sanctions against Iran. “We alone in the United States don’t have the capacity to cripple the Iranian economy with our sanctions,” said Maloney. She argued that “multilateral steps represent the only real alternative to a negotiated solution.”

Testifying before the committee, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I- Conn.) praised an amendment added to the Defense Authorization bill, which passed last week. The amendment places a time limit on how long Iran would have to respond to U.S. requests for negotiation before sanctions would be imposed.

“This bill will basically say to companies worldwide who are selling gasoline to Iran, who are shipping it to Iran, or who are insuring or financing those shipments, you got a choice to make. You can continue what you are doing with Iran, or you can do business in the United States of America. You cannot do both,” said Sen. Lieberman. He said that the amendment would not force President Obama to act, but would grant him the authority of enacting economic sanctions.

Sen. Lieberman said that the amendment had bipartisan support. “No matter what may divide us on other issues, we are very united in our concern, our anger about the Iranian program of nuclear weapons development,” he said. “The greatest threat to peace is for Iran to get a nuclear weapons capability.”

Boehner Slams Democratic Agenda As Recess Approaches

By Learned Foote- Talk Radio News Service

House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) criticized Democratic priorities over the past few months, including the stimulus plan, the cap-and-trade bill, and the ongoing debate over health care reform, during a press conference Thursday.

Rep. Boehner also argued that legislation is being passed too quickly in Congress. When asked whether he has read every bill during his time in Congress, he admitted that he “may not have read every word in every bill,” but claimed that he tried to understand all of the legislation he supported. He said that during his time as Majority Leader, the Republicans always allowed bills to remain under consideration for at least 24 hours before a vote.

Rep. Boehner dismissed a compromise recently reached by conservative and progressive members of the Democratic Congress over health care legislation, and predicted that Americans would pressure their elected representatives to reject the legislation over the summer recess.

Citing multiple polls, Rep. Boehner argued that most Americans do not support health care reforms being advanced by the Obama administration and Congress. “This isn’t about Republicans,” said Boehner. “This is the American people’s opposition that is growing.” He argued that the “American public doesn’t want the government involved and delivering their health care.”

Rep. Boehner acknowledged that some private sector associations support the proposed health care reform legislation, but said that “privately they have serious concerns.” He said that there is “muted opposition from the lobbyist groups because they basically have got a foot in each camp.”

“None of the committee chairman that are writing this bill have any private sector experience....for that matter, neither does the president,” said Rep. Boehner.

House Democrats Introduce “Equal Employment For All” Legislation

By Learned Foote- Talk Radio News Service

House Democrats on Tuesday introduced H.R. 3149, otherwise known as the “Equal Employment For All Act,” which aims to reduce the burden of unemployment on individuals with poor credit scores.

The bill would prohibit employers from using credit reports to guide hiring decisions and from asking applicants to voluntarily provide this information.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who wrote the legislation, said that 43% of employers use credit checks during the hiring process.

Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), a co-sponsor of the bill, called such credit checks “unnecessary barriers to employment.” Rep. Cohen cited a study by the American Psychological Society, and said that unless the job “involves significant financial responsibility,” these credit reports have “no relevance to a person’s qualifications or ability to do jobs.”

Some employers would be exempt from the legislation, including financial institutions and some governmental agencies.

The congressmen argued that bad credit reports often result from factors that cannot be controlled by the individuals in question, including medical issues and job loss during troubled economic times. Rep. Cohen cited studies emphasizing that racial minorities often have worse credit report ratings than whites. “We shouldn’t allow for credit reports that don’t help employers, but only aggravate circumstances in parts of the communities most hurt,” he said.

Rep. Gutiérrez said that “too many Americans are caught in the preventible cycle of debt.” He said that “they’ve fallen into bad credit and as a result they cannot do the one thing that would enable them to climb out: get a job, work hard, and earn a better score.”

The bill has 31 cosponsors, most of whom are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Constitutional Experts Discuss Law To Criminalize Presidential Lies To Congress

By Learned Foote- Talk Radio News Service

Legal experts on Monday offered their views on H.R. 743, the Executive Accountability Act of 2009 during testimony before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

The bill would place criminal penalties on the executive branch for willingly misleading Congress in order to persuade it to use armed forces.

Said Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC) who introduced the legislation, “Members of Congress must be able to trust our President at his word, especially when making decisions to go to war."

Jones used the behavior of former presidents Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush during the Vietnam and Iraq Wars as examples of “arrogance of power,” which he hoped could be mitigated by this legislation. However, Jones emphasized that “the bill is not about the past,” and emphasized that it would not be applied retroactively.

Dr. Louis Fisher, a specialist in constitutional law, said that the founders who wrote the Constitution knew that “single executives go to war not for the national interest; they go to war for reasons of military glory.” He said that the authority to “take the country from a state of peace to a state of war was to be given to Congress alone.”

Bruce Fein, a legal consultant and constitutional expert who served in the Department of Justice under President Reagan, said that the President could avoid criminal penalties by simply "sharing all of the information he relied upon to Congress.”

Jonathan F. Cohn, a partner at Sidley and Austin who worked in the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush, disagreed with the previous testimonies. He said that presidents should be “truthful and candid always, and especially in the context when the country makes the grave decision to send its children off to war.”

Cohn said the legislation could “impede inter-branch cooperation,” arguing that it could create a chilling effect due to the “fear of potential prosecution.”

“Punishing the ousted regime may be the preferred course of certain banana republics of the past, but with respect, this should not be the United States’ path in the 21st century.”

Congressional Panel Scrutinizes Use Of Auto Bailout Funds

By Learned Foote- Talk Radio News Service



Representatives from GM, Chryler, and the White House’s auto-task force defended the bailout of the two auto manufacturers and their subsequent use of TARP funds during a hearing Monday with Congressional Oversight Panel held in Detroit, Michigan. 



Walter Borst, Treasurer of the General Motors Company, said that “we are grateful for our nation’s support,” and promised that the “new GM will repay our nation’s investment.”

He noted that GM is a “new company with less debt, a stronger balance sheet, with the right size manufacturing, products, and dealer network to match today’s market realities.”

Borst emphasized that “both the Obama and Bush administration made it quite clear that they were reluctant investors. We were equally reluctant recipients.” 

Ron Bloom, the head of the Obama administration’s auto task-force, said that “every creditor will almost certainly receive more than they would have had the government not stepped in.” 



Bloom illustrated the main principles by which the government is operating in its partial ownership of the auto companies. He said that the government “has no desire to own equity in companies any longer than necessary,” it will manage its “ownership stake in a hands-off, commercial manner” and “will only vote on core governance issues, including the selection of the company’s board of directors.”  



Committee Chairman Elizabeth Warren, a bankruptcy expert who teaches at Harvard Law, questioned when the federal government will relinquish ownership of the auto companies, asking, “When can we expect to see some timelines?” 

Bloom responded that “the decision has been made to not articulate a specific timeline.” Bloom noted that presenting a timeline would “create an overhang in the market that would be deleterious to receiving the best price,” but the government will act “as soon as is practicable.”  



Warren also asked why the leadership of financial institutions had not been altered as drastically as the leadership of the auto companies, but Bloom said his “sole focus...has been on the auto companies.” “I’ve had my hands full trying to wrestle with two very large troubled auto companies. That takes up 21 hours of the day,” he said.

Bloom stated that his tasks include three priorities, including financial and operational restructuring, as well as a “third leg...the cultural change,” which included establishing a new board of directors, which will be made up of “people of extraordinary accomplishment in the private sector, people who have had experience effectuating turn-around.”



Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) adopted a critical tone towards the actions taken by the Obama administration. Hensarling argued that TARP was “ostensibly designed for financial firms, [and it] is clearly now being used to rescue auto manufacturers.” He added that the fund “now appears to be nothing more than a 700 billion dollar revolving bailout fund used to promote the administration’s political, social, and economic goals.” He also argued that senior bondholders were set aside and “junior creditors like the UAW [United Auto Workers]...were given far more preferential treatment.” He said that he worried that the Treasury Department would “politicize our economy and hinder our economic recovery.”



Hensarling asked whether it was “wise economic policy” to subsidize GM and Chrysler while Ford, who had reported financial trouble in 2008, functions without federal assistance. In response, Bloom said that Ford officials supported the bailout of the other two auto companies.