Tag: housing crisis

The Audacious Patrick McHenry, Speaker Pro Tempore, and His Bold Housing Agenda

Michael Matheron2 Comments

Yesterday, quickly following the removal of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, a stand-in Speaker, aka Speaker Pro Tempore, became necessary under House rules. According to these rules, in January, McCarthy was required to provide the House clerk a then secret list of members that temporarily serve as Speaker of the House if the office became vacant.

“Excited to be here”

So it came to pass that Patrick McHenry, McCarthy’s buddy, and a nine-term North Carolina Republican, was the first name on his list. He immediately took the gavel in hand and then the bull by the horns, boldly announcing the House in recess “subject to the call of the chair,” i.e., himself. How long a recess is unknown, although most expect the House back next week, thus giving members time to kibbitz and jockey and bloviate, and lie.

McHenry, allowing no grass to grow under his feet, then began Speaker Pro Teming, attacking pressing national concerns. After all, his ProTem powers under House rules allow him to govern issues deemed “necessary and appropriate.” After scurrying off the House floor, McHenry warmed to his powers immediately by addressing the massive housing crisis afoot in the House, where GOP members often live in the corridors and restrooms.

Phase one was decisive, summarily throwing 81-year-old Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi out of her honorific office. These few so-called “hideaway offices,” are traditional and intended to honor a few significant House members. Not a fan of tradition, according to AXIOS, McHenry’s “email asked Pelosi’s staff to ‘vacate the space tomorrow’ at which point the locks to the office will be changed.” Although Pelosi was in California at services for Diane Feinstein, 24-hour notice is apparently “necessary and appropriate,” not to put too fine a point on McHenry’s good nature. He would not be simply an empty suit, he would move ahead on vital issues, something new for his GOP majority in the 118th Congress. À la the French Revolution’s firebrand Georges Danton, McHenry is all in: “De l’audace, encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace.” What a checklist he must have. And lo and behold the audacious Mr. McHenry struck again, this morning, evicting 26-term, 84-year-old Maryland congressman Steny Hoyer; “No more hideaway for you!”

Many GOPers already jockey for pride of place in the reassignment of Pelosi’s and Hoyer’s offices. Moreover, expect more of the same. Mr. McHenry’s daring new House Housing Directorate is open for business. L’Audace!

Forward HQ, Class Warfare 2011: The Peasants Are Restless on Wall Street – Release the Hounds!

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

October 3, 2011

Beware The Anger of a Patient Man. What the Occupy Wall Street contingent protests is primarily that downward path of the 90% of Americans who have lost ground financially for more than three decades. Particularly, however, since the 2008 housing and financial market meltdown the decline of the well-being of most Americans is stark. Housing values – heretofore the staple of net worth for most Americans – are in a depression, and mortgage and credit burdens increase relative to stagnant income. The decline in home equity reminds me of Wily Coyote going off a cliff, only this isn’t a cartoon, it’s the sterile visual of the real pain suffered by most of us. Mortgage debt and credit debt has not moved downward at all, really, particularly when measured against stagnant personal income.

Income growth, by the way, is no growth, for many years. Moreover, despite the whining by the wealth class, their effective tax rates are lower than they’ve been in more than 25 years, and nearly as low as they’ve been since mid-Depression 1933. Who caused all this? The working class, Mr. Main Street, the poor, labor unions? Not even the daily mid- and low-level employees of Wall Street were responsible for the debacle. No, they too were the victims of a mammoth fraud based upon reckless financial instruments created by reckless and craven financial geniuses.

It’s no wonder we peasants-in-training are in the mood to march. Bravo, to those Wall Street marchers, and to those in other cities. Recall that protests against the Vietnam war were small at first, but in the end, small beginnings mobilized millions. I was there – we even tried to levitate the Pentagon – and the mood on Wall Street is reminiscent of ours then. We just kept pushing forward, day after day, march after march. And, in my experience, the present Wall Street contingent, at this writing, is in no way “small.” This physical embodiment of resistance will bear fruit. Oligarchs and kleptarchs rely on complacency. You there in New York City, Boston, Portland, Maine, and elsewhere, you’ve got their attention, and they’ve already, courtesy of the NYPD, released the hounds . . . They hear you coming.