PRESS RELEASE
Who Is Retarding Momentum
for Glass-Steagall?
Sept. 22, 2011 (EIRNS)—There were significant new signs of support for Rep. Marcy Kaptur's H.R. 1489, the bill to restore Glass-Steagall, this week. Louisiana's Democratic Party Central Committee became the first state-wide political organization to endorse H.R. 1489 on Sept. 17, and two more senior Democratic Congressmen
- Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and
- Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.)
added their names as cosponsors. There are now 41 cosponsors, plus Kaptur, including four Republicans.
As far as constituency organizations are concerned, there are 8 state AFL-CIO organizations which have voted up resolutions for H.R. 1489—in addition to the national AFL-CIO itself, and the National Farmers Union. They are joined by dozens of union locals, city councils, and local Democratic Party organizations in:
- New Jersey
- California
- Iowa
- Kentucky
- Minnesota
- Wisconsin
- West Virginia
- North Carolina
While the progress is steady, however, the national and international drumbeat for urgently preventing a cataclysmic blowout of the world financial system by dumping the gambling debts through Glass-Steagall, should have generated significantly more support. EIR has the personal testimony of some members of Congress that Treasury Secretary Geithner is agitating against the bill, and that some Democrats have put a huge amount of pressure on both prospective Senate sponsors, and members of the New York delegation (4 have signed on), to try to kill the momentum. And it is widely known among Democrats that President Obama—faithful to his British patrons—opposes the bill. It is clear that "party loyalty" is one of the lines being put out to stymie the crucial bill for saving the nation.
Any Republican or Democrat who is refusing to sign on and act for this bill, for so-called partisan reasons, is acting as nothing less than an enemy of this nation. It is on that basis that patriotic citizens of the United States must act immediately, not somewhere down the road.
