Risch, LaRocco weigh in on financial crisis
Idaho U.S. Senate candidates Larry LaRocco and Jim Risch weighed in on the national financial crisis yesterday, LaRocco calling a press conference and detailing his favored solution and Risch, in Washington, D.C., responding by phone to questions from a couple of Idaho reporters.
LaRocco, a former stockbroker and former managing director of the American Bankers Association, favors a mechanism similar to the Resolution Trust Corporation, created in the 1990s during the savings and loan crisis; he said it protected homeowners, sold off failed institutions and restored confidence in the markets. “I believe a similar mechanism can work this time,” LaRocco said, “but it must not be a blank check for the Administration to bail out firms that it deems ‘too big to fail.’ That would punish not only taxpayers, but businesses that have played by the rules.” He also said CEOs of failed institutions shouldn’t be permitted to leave with “golden parachutes.” The organization, LaRocco said, must be run by “a bipartisan, professional staff, and to have a firm deadline for finishing its work. … It must also contain a guarantee of repayment to the taxpayers who bear the burden of this crisis. I could not vote for a recovery mechanism that didn’t contain such a guarantee,” he said.
The AP reported that Risch, attending meetings with lawmakers and campaign fundraisers in Washington, D.C., this week, didn't offer any specific ideas for solving the crisis but said more government regulation is needed to prevent future financial meltdowns. "Clearly, regulation is way overdue," Risch told the AP. "The best model we have is the type of oversight put in place after the bank crashes of 1929 and the updating of those over the years."
In his written plan, LaRocco also addressed energy and health care. “Once stability has returned to the market, we must address two other dysfunctional systems that hold the potential to become major economic emergencies down the road – our health care system and our dependence on foreign oil,” he said. Click below to read the full story from AP reporter Todd Dvorak.
