CNBC: Congressional Republicans 'Hate Wall Street'

     Conservative opposition to a federal bailout of financial institutions is over campaign donations, not a desire to uphold sound market principles, according to CNBC.

     CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent John Harwood said Sept. 25 on “Squawk Box” that he had a conversation with “a top Republican member of congress last night” who told him the resistance among conservatives to the $700 billion bailout plan is in part due to Wall Street donations to Democrats.

     “A lot of our guys have decided that we hate Wall Street … because they’re giving a lot of money to Democrats right now,” Harwood said he was told by an unnamed source.

     “We’ve talked about how nice the bi-partisan coming together of the far left and the far right to oppose this plan. It was heartwarming, right? That finally brought the fringe elements of both sides together on this,” co-host Joe Kernan joked.

     Political action committees of American companies had contributed almost $214 million to the Democrats and Republicans by late July, according to the Sept. 18 issue of [1]The Economist.

     Even though the Democratic Party has not historically kept step with the Republican Party on campaign contributions from business, the magazine pointed out that for the first time in over two decades, the cash was evenly divided with each party receiving roughly $107 million.

     Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, has loudly criticized the bailout plan.

     Shelby was quoted on the Politico.com blog [2]“The Crypt” Sept. 23 saying, “I don’t know if the bill will pass … It could pass, because the Fed and Treasury secretary and administration, they are going to scare a lot of people. But the best disciplinarian of all is the marketplace. I believe if we didn’t do anything, the market would correct it all.”

     “What troubles me most is that we have been given no credible assurances that this plan will work. We could very well spend $700 billion and not resolve the crisis,” Shelby said, according to [3]Reuters Sept 23.