What would Bernie say to Wall Street for $400K?

Yesterday I harshly criticized former President Obama for accepting a $400,000 fee to give a speech for Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald. Today we consider this subject from a different point of view, that dramatizes what should be the fundamental difference between the Democratic and Republican parties.

Imagine if Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) were invited by one of the world’s largest multinational banks to give a paid speech.

In this imaginary opportunity for Sanders to line his pockets, he might reply that he doesn’t accept payment for Wall Street speeches but would give the speech if it were put on pay-per-view television with the millions of dollars of profit to be donated in full to jobless workers and homeless veterans.

With a worldwide audience far larger than a Spicer news conference or a Trump tweet, Sanders might rise to congratulate the Wall Street managers and executives for helping, along with a Russian dictator and rogue FBI director, to elect a President Trump, the greatest gift to the most wealthy Americans since the previous Republican president.

In this speech of dreams, Sanders would then give warning to the Wall Street managers: They may have a president who is of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy, and they may benefit, short-term, from a president who gives them everything they ask for and more — and might even trick some workers into not knowing they are paying for it. But they should enjoy their good times while they last.

{mosads}Sanders might then become ominously serious and ask: “Don’t you understand, men and women of Wall Street, that the greatest market crashes and the worst depression and worst recessions in the history of the planet happened under Republican presidents, who brought crony capitalist corruptions and class-biased trickle down economics as President Trump is doing today?

“Don’t you understand,” Sanders might ask the denizens of Wall Street, “that Trump is no genius at the art of the deal, he is a genius of the art of the debt. Why do you think he is hiding his tax returns? Trump’s debt bankrupted some of his companies, but if he bankrupts America the world economy will crash — again.

“You must understand,” Sanders might say on Wall Street, “that if we destroy the modest financial regulations we have, under a president who takes crony capitalism to new levels, that what happened in the last financial crash will happen again, created by the same greed that brought the national economy to its knees the last time, doing the same things that threaten to cause the next crash.”

If Donald Trump represents a big lie, pretending to be for working people when he is really the president for the most wealthy, Bernie Sanders knows the big truth that compassion, justice and equality are also the most profitable economic policy.

A great truth in economic policy is that Jesus was right, Pope Francis is right, the teachings of great religions about helping the poor are right, John Maynard Keynes was right, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy were right, and Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln were right.

History teaches that doing the most economic good for the largest number people is not only moral and just for the many, it does the most good right for Wall Street and Main Street alike.

Jesus said those who are wealthy should sell their possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. If economic policy applied this principle, help for the poor and a lift for the middle class would put far more money in the hands of consumers than the trickle-down theories of Republicans, who would shower the wealthy with more money they have no need to spend.

By putting more money in the hands of poor, middle-class and working-class consumers, they would buy products, which are made by workers, who will have more jobs, which would increase growth, which would increase profits, which would lift the markets for the long term.

By creating equal pay for women, and a higher minimum wage for all workers, these women and workers would drive a surge of economic growth beyond the one that Trump promises but will never deliver.

If Sanders gave this speech on Wall Street he would probably be met with more boos than a Republican congressman at a town meeting, but look on the bright side: Trump’s first 100 days have been a bust, and the midterm elections and next presidential campaign come closer every day.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), then-chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. in international financial law from the London School of Economics. He can be read on The Hill’s Contributors blog and reached atbrentbbi@webtv.net.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.