Cheney Pushes for More Cash Exploration

In a joint statement Vice President Dick Cheney and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson yesterday called for a substantial increase in domestic cash exploration and other financial resources, including in environmentally sensitive areas, saying that only increased production - and not new technology - will satisfy the nation's economic crisis.

"We are an economy that runs on cash.  Almost $40 billion of it a day.  That can and will change over time, but it will be a very long time," said Paulson, former head of U.S. financial company Goldman Sachs. "We'd be doing the whole country a favor if more of that cash were produced here at home."

Cheney chided lawmakers for blocking financial companies from extracting investments from environmentally sensitive areas such as the Silicon Valley National Investor Refuge.  SVNIR is the home of the last surviving flock of angel investors that were nearly hunted to extinction during the dot-com boom of 1995-2001.

Robert Reich, professor at U.C. Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and advisor to President-elect Barack Obama, disputed Cheney and Paulson's prescription.  "The only people who would benefit from more cash investment are the financial companies," he said.  Reich said that financial companies already hold millions of mortgages to extract cash from virtually every state in the nation.  "They have an interest in not dramatically expanding financial supply because that will keep interest rates high."

Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donahue said the association is kicking off a $15 million-a-year plan to persuade lawmakers to support cash exploration in SVNIR and money laundering technologies.

Cheney acknowledged the economy is facing "headwinds," including "turmoil in the credit markets" and "a major correction in housing" in addition to rising loan rates.  "The current economic crisis demands that we consider all options for domestic cash exploration."

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