From a news release by the Green Party USA:

Green Party leaders said today that measures to end the recession must focus on the financial needs of middle- and lower-income Americans, and accused Democrats and Republicans in Congress and President Obama of favoring big banks, financial institutions, and insurance firms.

“The very banks, Wall Street firms, and insurance companies that are responsible for the economic crisis are calling the shots for economic recovery. They’re using their power over Congress and the White House to make sure that taxpayers’ money and workers’ retirement benefits rescue CEOs and major shareholders. They’re blocking badly needed regulation and the deeper reforms in our economic system that are necessary to dig us out of the hole. Unfortunately, President Obama and Democrats and Republicans in Congress are cooperating with them so that the power these corporations hold over America remains undiminished,” said Laura Wells, former candidate for California State Controller (TV interview: http://www.gp.org/flash/LauraWells/lw.html). Ms. Wells intends to run for the position again “until we — the people of this state — win. We need to follow the money, understand it, and correct it.”

Congress and the White House have refused to take real action against skyrocketing interest rates, especially on credit cards, by restoring laws against usury and imposing interest rate caps. Greens called the Democrats’ “Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights” a small step in the right direction but severely inadequate, with no limits on future credit card interest rates.

“The economic meltdown is the result of deregulated lending — predatory mortgage lending, outrageous credit card interest and fees, and other practices that have put working Americans into endless debt and bankrupted small businesses,” said Jody Grage, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States. “But Democrats and Republicans alike have refused to consider modest steps like an 18% interest rate cap, out of loyalty to major corporate campaign contributors and lobbies.”

“The most important step in ending the economic crisis must be reversal of the Reagan-Bush-Clinton revolution, which deregulated the financial industry. All that rhetoric about ‘shrinking big government’ really meant repealing protections for working people, especially laws against usury. Since 1980, bipartisan legislation favoring giant corporate lenders have paved the way for the current disaster. It’s time to restore and expand the Glass-Steagal Act, overturn recent bankruptcy bills that put millions of Americans in hock to credit card companies and other financial corporations, and place restrictive caps on corporate lenders and creditors,” said Ms. Grage

More information: “The Trouble With Democrats” by William Greider, The Nation, June 22, 2009 (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/greider).