Bean Pockets Credit Bureau Money

[Bill Scheurer]

Rising Tide Campaign

Bill Scheurer for Congress

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                            Contact:  Bill Scheurer, Candidate

July 18, 2010                                                                         Scheur...@comcast.net

                                                                                                  847-245-1421 (h) | 847-370-3411 (m)

Bean Pockets Credit Bureau Money

Millions of families in our declining middle-class are facing a new Catch 22 as a result of thirty years of our failed experiment with “trickle-down economics” theory.

Months or years of prolonged unemployment are trashing their credit ratings. Meanwhile, employers routinely pull credit bureau reports in evaluating job candidates.

So, having no job leads to loss of a good credit rating which leads to having no job. Get it? This is the Catch 22. You have to have a job in order to get a job!

H.R. 3149: The Equal Employment for All Act would fix this circular problem by prohibiting employers from pulling credit reports for any job candidate who is not applying for a position with a fiduciary responsibility for the financial operations of a company. Just like they cannot access your private medical records, a company will not be able to access your private financial records.

What stands in the way? This bill has been stalled in the House Committee on Financial Services. Twenty-Seven members of that committee (called by some, the “Dirty 27”) have pocketed campaign contributions from the three credit bureaus who are opposing this bill.

Yes, you read that right. Corporations who are lobbying against a bill that threatens their financial interests are making political contributions to the very legislators who are considering that bill.

Topping this list of the “Dirty 27” is our own incumbent Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL8), who has taken $10,500 from the three credit bureau PACs so far for this 2010 election.

People could make reasonable arguments on either side on the merits of this bill. For my part, I believe our deep and prolonged economic crisis tips the balance in favor of this bill. Otherwise, we risk developing a permanent underclass of people who will never be able to get back into the workforce.

However, what no one can argue with any credibility is that this is an acceptable practice in a people’s democracy. To allow corporations to give money to legislators who hold in their hands the fate of important legislation that these same corporations are lobbying against – is bribery plain and simple, or what they call in Washington “business as usual.”

So, when well-heeled incumbents trumpet their fundraising plunder as a badge of success and credibility, and a willing commercial media goes right along with them in perpetuating this myth – consider the source, consider the impact on our democracy of all this dirty money.

Can we the people really afford these kinds of conflicts of interest any longer? Will either of the two incumbent parties ever lead us out of this mess of corruption? Not a chance, and everyone knows it.