Earthquake election

The fraud charges filed against Goldman Sachs are the first of many
charges that will be brought against multiple firms in a coming red-hot
summer of financial scandal.

I offer no legal opinion of the Goldman case in this indictment of an epic and almost biblical scandal that imposes savage pain on patriotic Americans who will pay for this scandal for a generation.

{mosads}Outrage against Washington and Wall Street will intensify with every new charge as the jobless rate hovers at sadistic heights and the foreclosure rate continues at cruel and record levels.

Republicans are in denial if they believe the road to victory is to parrot spin written for them by consultant Frank Luntz that sounds like support for corruption by firms that received massive bailouts initiated by a Republican president.

Do Republicans believe Jesus was a socialist, that the few who have so much who took massive wealth for themselves, through failures and frauds that imposed massive pain on the many who have so little, are true patriots or capitalists?

Democrats are in denial if they do not understand that they control the presidency and Congress and a majority of voters are deeply dissatisfied with what they have gotten for their votes.

Do Democrats take responsibility that the seeds of this scandal were planted by a Democratic Treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, between stints at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and one of his protégés, Timothy Geithner, was rewarded with a promotion to a disastrous tenure at the New York Fed, and rewarded again with a promotion to Treasury secretary, while the real jobless rate remains at 17 percent and his programs to halt foreclosures have been a fiasco?

Tea Party leaders may soon be revealed as frauds if they refuse to oppose bonuses at bailed-out banks and act like lobbyists for bankers and operatives for Republicans who began the bailouts they attack.

Eighty percent of the nation has no confidence in Washington. They believe the game is fixed, the bid is rigged, and the deck is stacked against them.

In this insulting Kabuki drama, those who impose the greatest pain are perpetually rewarded with the greatest wealth, while the people are forced to endure their failures and watch them count their money.

This epic scandal of almost biblical dimension is a reversal of the basic notion of “Do unto others.” It is an un-American attack against cardinal principles of the Founding Fathers, who believed that leaders should represent the interests of the people, instead of hoarding money from special interests that place their greed above the nation.

This moral tragedy turns Americanism on its head. Some claim it is moral hazard to help working stiffs whose jobs are outsourced to slave-wage nations and whose homes are taken by bankers. But when those bankers receive gigantic bonuses to reward their failures, they so falsely call this capitalism and so shamefully call this Americanism.

There is an earthquake election coming because the majority of voters deplore the continuing triumph of values they believe are wrong, and the continuing defeat of first principles of civic, moral and patriotic duty they believe are right.

Incumbents of both parties should be trembling.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Bill Alexander, then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. He can be read on The Hill’s Pundits Blog and reached at brentbbi@webtv.net.