As I suspected when I Twittered about it at the time , she’s a creature of the insurance and banking lobbyists. I am SO DISAPPOINTED in her. She replaced the worse do-nothing doddering Republican Congressman then in the House, and for this? Ugh. I hope some good people gear up to give her a primary challenge. And she still doesn’t have a Twitter account or a decent email system. Her canned responses via email take forever.
Jane Hamsher: Melissa Bean Helps Banks Gut Bill to Limit TARP Bonuses
It looked like it was going to be smooth sailing for Grayson’s bill, but then Melissa Bean decided to give the Republicans a hand. Her New Democrat Coalition has an Executive Director, Adam Pase, who is a former bank lobbyist for predatory lenders. Their members brag about their Wall Street backgrounds and their close ties to the banks, and Bean herself took in $918,200 in campaign contributions from the finance, insurance and real estate sector for her 2008 race. She was one of six Democrats who voted against the bill taxing AIG bonuses.So it was no surprise when Bean stood up and offered an amendment which allowed TARP recipients to get out from under the bill’s limitations if they had started paying their loans back.
Brad Sherman, known for being a genuinely fiscally responsible member of the House, objected (see video below). He said “it would allow a large number of companies to escape the effect of the bill without doing much more than making a few monthly payments of a very small amount.” Sherman’s own bill, which would have capped executive compensation for TARP recipients at a million dollars a year, was never allowed on the floor.
