Pelosi Announces Hearings On Bailouts, Blasts Bush

By Daniel W. Reilly

(The Politico)  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a set of congressional hearings on the recent federal government intervention on Wall Street Wednesday night, while delivering a blistering indictment of President Bush’s ability to manage the economy.

Appearing at a press conference alongside Pelosi, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said his committee would begin hearings next week on the matter.

Frank said the latest bailout was “confirmation of the irresponsible failure to regulate” on the part of the Bush administration.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said his committee would also hold hearings on how these large financial corporations got into the position where the federal government had to bail them out.

Waxman said that on October 6 and 7 he would call both the former CEO of Lehman Brothers Bank and 3 former CEOs of AIG to testify before his committee.

Pelosi attributed the latest turmoil on Wall Street to years of lax financial regulation under Bush.

“This is crony capitalism manifesting itself in the meltdown of our financial institutions,” Pelosi said, lamenting the fact that taxpayer dollars would now have to be used to fund the bailouts.

"Is it a free market if you privatize the gain and nationalize the risk?"