The two speakers at the lunch session during \u201cWhat Comes Next: Opportunities, Risks and Rewards,\u201d at the 2008 DLA Piper Global Real Estate Summit held Tuesday in Chicago, were a power pair indeed: Jack Kemp, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1996, and George Mitchell, former U.S. Senator (D-Maine) and currently global chairman of DLA Piper.The session\u2019s title was \u201cStay Red? Go Blue? What November 4 Will Tell Us,\u201d but the kickoff topic was the $700 billion federal bailout of the financial markets, aka TARP, or the troubled assets relief program. Though Kemp and Mitchell come from different political backgrounds, they agreed that such an initiative is essential right now.\u201cWe need a 21st-century RTC,\u201d said Kemp, who was HUD Secretary when the Resolution Trust Corp. was formed in 1989 to handle the wreckage from the savings and loan crisis. \u201cI say this as a Republican\u2026. I don\u2019t believe we can take a hands-off approach.\u201d\u201cThe weight of the evidence,\u201d said Mitchell, \u201cis already quite clear that some action will be necessary.\u201d He agreed with Kemp that strong oversight of the Treasury Secretary will be needed, and said he\u2019s confident that Congress will insist on it. == And although the markets want a plan nailed down sooner rather than later, the former Senator emphasized that writing and debating the legislation shouldn\u2019t be rushed. \u201cMembers of Congress have to commit themselves to spending enough time to make sure this gets done right.\u201dKemp recalled having proposed that capital-gains taxes be waived on properties bought from the RTC and said he thinks that incentives under TARP would similarly be a sound idea.Regarding concerns that the record-setting bailout could set a precedent for other troubled industries, Mitchell acknowledged the risk, but added, \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a sufficient basis for saying we won\u2019t do it.\u201dOn the issue of energy policy, both men drew a sharp distinction between \u201cenergy security\u201d and \u201cenergy independence.\u201d Both presidential candidates \u201care talking PC language,\u201d Kemp charged, by implying that the U.S. can have true energy independence, that is, not need any foreign sources of energy, in 10 years or whatever other time frame.Kemp characterized T. Boone Pickens\u2019 highly visible series of TV ads as simplistic. He noted, for example, that American dollars going overseas to pay for oil don\u2019t all go to Arab-Moslem states, and that those dollars often come back to the U.S. economy. \u201cOur exports have been the one part of the economy that\u2019s been a big plus,\u201d he noted, with exports rising significantly in the past 18 months.\u201cAmerica\u2019s standing in the world,\u201d Mitchell said, \u201cis the lowest it\u2019s ever been,\u201d and for the next administration, \u201cA major task will be to regain our moral status in the world.\u201dDescribing himself as \u201ca dove, a heavily armed dove,\u201d Kemp called for the next administration to partner with America\u2019s European allies on a \u201c21st-century Marshall Plan\u201d to promote development in the Islamic world. He pointed out that U.S. foreign aid to Pakistan, for example, is outweighed by high import tariffs on Pakistani textiles.A member of the audience asked the presenters about the destructive lack of bipartisanship in Congress. Mitchell noted that political leaders for the most part tend to reflect the values and positions of their constituents, and added that severe partisanship is nothing new in American politics, citing the extremely close and divisive U.S. presidental election of 1800.Kemp traced much of the current toxicity in Congress to the attempt to impeach Bill Clinton. \u201cThat was a sad moment, and we haven\u2019t gotten over it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The two speakers at the lunch session during \u201cWhat Comes Next: Opportunities, Risks and Rewards,\u201d at the 2008 DLA Piper Global Real Estate Summit held Tuesday in Chicago, were a power pair indeed: Jack Kemp, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1996, and George Mitchell, former U.S. Senator (D-Maine)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1003854231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n