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Candidates agree: Bailout was bad policy
District 7 race
Published 12:00 p.m., October 20, 2008
Photo by Photo Provided
Collin Peterson
Congressman Collin Peterson and his District 7 challenger Glen Menze disagree on many issues regarding the farm bill, but there is one issue they agree on: The financial meltdown.
Both candidates said in a televised debate Friday that the bailout bill approved recently by the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate was bad policy that could hurt the nation for years to come.
Menze even went as far as to complement Peterson for voting against the bailout measure twice when it came up for vote.
Menze
Menze, who grew up in Otter Tail County and now lives in Starbuck, challenged Peterson eight years ago.
Peterson, who has held office for 18 years, is the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and was involved in writing the federal farm bill that was approved this year.
“The bailout bill that was passed is wrong because it cost taxpayers more than $700 billion,” Menze said.
Taking an obvious shot at Peterson, Menze said the passing of the bailout bill reminded him of how the farm bill was passed — so much pork was piled up on it that lawmakers couldn’t help but vote for it.
Menze said lawmakers should have taken a look at the bad mortgages and changed the sub-primes to decent mortgages so the federal government would have held an asset after the bailout was complete.
“I don’t think this will be the first time that Congress is asked to help so taxpayers need to watch this close,” Menze said.
For the most part, Peterson agreed.
“I think we kind of got stampeded into this,” Peterson said.
“Paulson (Treasury Sec-retary Henry Paulson) said it had to be done that way and the party leadership bought into it,” he said.
Paulson has been given too much power, Peterson said, and Congress could have gone about addressing the economy crisis in a better way.
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The Daily Journal is happy to host community conversations about news and life in Fergus Falls and the surrounding area. As hosts, we expect guests will show respect for each other. That means we don't threaten or defame each other, and we keep conversations free of personal attacks. Those who persist with racist, defamatory or abusive postings risk losing the privilege to post. To post a comment you will need to register. Or, if you're already registered but have not included your true, verifiable identity with your registration, you will need to update your account to include your identity. Effective Dec. 1, 2009, all posts appear with the commenter's true identity, which must be verified by site staff. Those who registered prior to Dec. 1, 2009, should be aware that once you update your information with your true identity, all prior posts under your user name will also indicate your true identity. If you do not wish to link yourself to prior comments, you should register again with a different user name.Posted by watermelon (anonymous) on October 20, 2008 at 5:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What we _really_ need is another one of those economic stimulus packages. I really burned through that last 600 bucks fast, what with all the haggar slacks and frozen pizza pies that I purchased for all my friends.
Posted by mnisgreat (anonymous) on October 20, 2008 at 11:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Stop the Republican wealth redistribution FROM the middle class to the top 5%.
It is time to STOP the wealth distribution FROM the middle class into the pockets of the top 5%. I don't think any of us asked for triple the price of gas, 80% increases in our health care premiums, or 20% decreases in our home values, or 6.2% unemployment in Minnesota, or $700 billion of our tax paying dollars going to Iraq, or another $700 billion dollars of our tax paying dollars going to Wall Street. This ridiculous concept that Barack Obama and Al Franken are for redistributing the wealth to the poor is a political strawman to distract everyone from the fact that the Republicans have been redistributing money from OUR pockets into the pockets of their rich Oil company, defense contractors, and wall street buddies for decades. Al and Barack just want to right an 8 year long wrong and start growing this country from the middle up and stop the destructive and failed economic policies of “trickle-down”. Al and Barack know that small business is the economic engine here in Minnesota and this is why they will stop the shipping of Minnesota jobs overseas and will provide TAX CUTS for the middle class and small business owners (95% of all Minnesotans and Americans).
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