Ben Evans, AP, March 30, 2009
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Monday criticized the lack of minority participation in the government’s financial bailouts and suggested that President Barack Obama isn’t doing much better than his predecessor to ensure diversity.
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“What I heard today from the administration seemed to be a continuation of the status quo,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said at a news conference outside the event. “It is time that we wake up.”
Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., noted that no women were in the group of bank leaders who met with Obama last week and warned that the country could end up relying on the same people who created the need for a rescue if it doesn’t branch out.
Fattah and others said they were optimistic that the administration would focus more on diversity moving forward. But they noted that the money is being spent quickly and said minority accountants, banks, financial advisers and law firms will be left out almost entirely without immediate changes.
For example, the lawmakers said the government will begin hiring financial firms in early April to manage the latest program for buying up bad assets from troubled banks. Firms must have management portfolios worth at least $10 billion to apply, they said, making the program off-limits not just to minority-owned companies but also to other small businesses.
One suggestion the lawmakers said they would pursue is adding incentives for larger firms to partner with minority businesses.
“We are not going to sit by and allow billions of dollars to be dumped into this economy and have the same old players being advantaged by it,” said Rep. Maxine Water, D-Calif. “We are tired of being overlooked.”
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Original article
(Posted on March 31, 2009)
Comments
What I don’t get about the bailouts is not their supposed lack of minority participation, but the fact that big banks and financial institution can get untold hundreds of billions of dollars just given to them, very few strings. But the Big 3 car companies have to get on their knees, beg, grovel and kiss the right anatomical parts just to get tens of billions of dollars of LOANS (not grants).
The latter would help save the few very good working middle class manufacturing jobs left in this country.
My best guess is that the American government is trying to drive away the assembly lines to China, using ecology as an excuse.
They should enlist the aid of the GOP (Republican Party). They both seem to have the same agenda, which is the the same as the Democratic Party.
“We are tired of being overlooked.”
Dear parasitic ,racial bigots; how about more racial/political diversity in your ” black Marxist priveledged hood ” ?
The Black Caucus needs to be shouted in the ear how the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act led to the devastating diversity that got us into our economic turmoil in the first place.
It’s always instructive to hear from Maxine Waters, perhaps the most utterly stupid, illiterate, and embarrassing individual ever to occupy a congressional seat in the history of our country.
But her complaint that blacks aren’t receiving enough bail-out money does illuminate an interesting point: Being black is not a color or condition in our country. Rather, it’s a profession, a full-time occupation, the purpose of which is to live off the wealth created by the productive sector, whether through outright welfare payments or affirmative action employment.
And as a now-legitimate occupation, the black profession perhaps is not receiving its fair share of the swag. Kudos to Quota Queen Maxine for bringing this injustice to our attention.
I’ve never seen this happen but, just once, lets pretend a group of successful black businessmen and honest black politicians let it be known that they have gradually accrued a large sum of money, after tax, and it’s just sitting in a successful black bank. To thank the country for making all this possible, they are donating the entire tranche to education, no strings. Not to black schools, or white schools or striped schools, but to central government for distribution. They don’t want anything in return, honest, nothing. It’s just a big thank you as they are sick of constantly reading reports about blacks begging, whining and expecting everything for nothing. It’s just a thought.
Lovely. Do minorities even pay taxes in the first place? It’s a little loathsome these people who can’t bring themselves to earn a good enough job to be responsible for paying taxes now demand a chunk of taxpayer money. If you don’t put anything in, don’t take anything out. You don’t deserve any. You’re lazy. Period.
In response to the first comment above, as long as the UAW is strangling these companies to death, there is no hope for them. I would never choose to open a company on American soil knowing once the unions take over I’m heading for bankruptcy. Coupled with, as you said, meeting the ridiculous EPA standards, it’s a lost cause. Until America wakes up, we are finished.
At this point I don’t think its a white or black issue. America is being robbed wholesale on the order of trillions of dollars and as citizens we are told that we must do without?
The anger is real and so the issues. Whether its keeping America’s basic industries alive or helping whites or blacks all of us are being shortchanged by the current government’s policy,which makes Bush II seem almost enlighted by comparison.
Blacks can have some of the bailout money after they pay back the trillions of dollars whites have paid in taxes for their social and welfare programs. So far the only thanks we get is rape, robbery and murder.
