S. 3522, the Responsible Homeowner Refinancing Act, would help consumers refinance their loans at current low rates -- yet Sen. Corker (R-TN) wants to attach an amendment that would give the banks legal immunity for knowingly handing out crappy loans. The Corker amendment would not only give the banksters whatever they want again, but would stick it to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Qualified Mortgage rule, and I'm sure that's not lost on Sen. Corker or his paymasters. So Public Citizen helps you tell your Senators to hold the banksters accountable. And let me add that I get quite sick and tired of hearing folks say well, the people who get those crappy loans should know better who never say banks should know better than to give out crappy loans. Too many folks are too eager to excoriate foolishness while excusing evil.
Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell Congress to extend wind power subsidies, Penn Environment still helps you do that. As I've said, I'm no great fan of tax subsidies for businesses, but whereas the oil subsidies merely enrich an industry that doesn't need it and nuclear subsidies haven't gotten that industry off the ground after 40 years, the wind power subsidies, originally a project of Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, actually work: wind energy production has grown fortyfold in America since 1997. And yet at least one dirty-fuel special interest spokeshack says he wants to make the wind power tax subsidy so "toxic" to House Speaker Boehner that he'll block its extension. What the hell is wrong with people like this, not just that they think they can make clean energy politically "toxic," but that they'd want to?
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