Matt Stoller, writing for Salon explains how Warren wouldn't let the Treasury be shortchanged by bailout deals. He cites a new paper by Stanford political scientist Lucas Puente showing Warren's work on the Congressional Oversight Panel saved more than $1 billion. She did it by being skeptical toward the Treasury Department’s bailout plans.
Here's what happened: During the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Treasury invested in shares of bank stocks. As part of the deal, the government got warrants, or the right to buy bank stock at a set price. Warren was the one person on the Congressional Oversight Panel who realized Treasury was selling off those warrants too cheap. Once she called the Treasury Department out on it, the warrants were sold for a better price -- for taxpayers.
Writes Stoller,
This leverage saved the taxpayer roughly a billion dollars. The final budget for Warren’s Congressional Oversight Panel was $10,684,422. That’s roughly a one hundred to one return on investment for every dollar invested in oversight. And that’s not including anything else that Warren’s oversight body did.
Brother John Juszkiewicz, a UPS steward, sent us the photo above of Teamsters at a get-out-the-vote rally for Warren yesterday in Malden, Mass. Pictured are Teamsters local 225 Driving Instructor Paul Mathi, UPS Steward George Bassett, Elizabeth Warren, Juszkiewcz, and UPS Steward Michelle Joshua.
