As I noted yesterday, Speaker Pelosi's partisan lies were a clear sign to members on both sides of the aisle that she didn't take this crisis seriously. Or, to be fair, the alternative explanation: that she is an abject moron (a proposition for which abundant evidence is available from over the years). Now here is more evidence of at least the former notion:
...considering that only a dozen votes needed to switch in order to provide a different outcome, and 95 Democrats in the House voted against it, critics are now wondering why couldn't House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have assured a different outcome considering how important she said its passage was?
Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., told me yesterday that he felt no pressure at all to vote for the bill.
Some leader.
In other words, it had nothing to do with saving the financial markets. It was for raw partisan advantage. The tragic and infuriating thing is that, even though Congress has an even lower rating than George Bush (and if it's possible for an approval rating to go negative, it probably did so after yesterday's clown show), many of these creatures will probably be reelected, due both to gerrymandered districts, and the unfortunate psychological notion that people hate Congress, but unaccountably think that their own Congressperson is great.
Dow opened up today. +231 as I type this.
Why do we need a bail out, again? After all this was Dubya's idea (and Paulson's) to begin with.
Newt Gingrich has a hand in all this, also. He believes Obama has it sewed up and is trying to lay a foundation for his own 2012 run.
President Bush has been saying consistently that America NEEDS this bail-out.
My complaint with Congressional Democrats is that they too often are stampeded by fear into doing whatever Bush says they need to do.
Therefore, Pelosi's "failure" yesterday is a feature not a bug.
Anyway, what's the rush?
Maybe there is no emergency after all and perhaps Dubya's most recent address to the nation saying there is an emergency was yet another of his lies. Like Saddam's WMD and Saddam's plotting with the 9/11 terrorists.
My complaint with Congressional Democrats is that they too often are stampeded by fear into doing whatever Bush says they need to do.
Oh, yeah. That happens aaaallll the time. That Bush and his evil mind-control rays.
You should consider doing stand up, Bill.
My complaint with Congressional Democrats is that they too often are stampeded by fear into doing whatever Bush says they need to do.
Perhaps you should protest vote this November. It worked for fiscal conservatives in 2006, and we got rid of many "go-along" Republicans. Now, when it counts, many of the remaining Congressional Republicans remember the last election and are listening to their constituents.
You can crow about Bush all day long, but Bush was elected because Democrats put up Kerry as an alternative. Kerry's not even a leader in the Senate now, so we can be certain that he would have collapsed during this crisis if he were President.
You can even trash talk McCain on the economy, but again, the alternative is Obama. Obama wants to spend even more money on questionable endeavors. He gave a spending wish list just this past Friday.
Rand, you say Pelosi is either an idiot or not taking the crisis seriously. There's a third possibility: she thinks it's a crisis but wanted the bill to fail.
Why would she do that?
- so far the economic crisis seems to be benefitting Obama
- if the economy tanks it's just one more thing to lay at the feet of Bush's "failed economic policies"
- assuming Obama will be the next president and congress stays in the hands of democrats, why do anything now? Wait a few months and you can go demo-crazy. It's the strategy they've been using all year with regard to budget matters and energy policy.
"notanexpert wrote:
Rand, you say Pelosi is either an idiot or not taking the crisis seriously. There's a third possibility: she thinks it's a crisis but wanted the bill to fail.
Why would she do that?
- so far the economic crisis seems to be benefitting Obama
- if the economy tanks it's just one more thing to lay at the feet of Bush's "failed economic policies""
I agree. The democrats see this as a win either way. If it passes, and things don't go to hell, then they take credit for passing it over the Republican minority in Congress. If it doesn't pass, they blame it on that same Republican minority. If it passes and things do go to hell anyway, they blame it on the Republican administration.
If it does pass, a lot of bankers get a big payout. Wall Street donates at least as much to Democrats as it does to Republicans, if not more. The dems can take the credit for stuffing tax-payer money into the pockets of their rich pals. If it doesn't pass, well, at least they tried.
"Maybe there is no emergency after all and perhaps Dubya's most recent address to the nation saying there is an emergency was yet another of his lies. Like Saddam's WMD and Saddam's plotting with the 9/11 terrorists."
The leaders of the free world thought he had WMD, including the Clintons so that's not a lie. He never said the 2nd part of that specious tripe.
In addition, the EU is calling for US lawmakers to pass the bailout plan as well. There is little doubt that a financial crisis exists. The question is the best course to resolve it.
Once again, the average American shows themselves to be smarter than politicians. No bailout.
This crisis was created by the idiot panderers and if we can keep there fingers out of it (other than perhaps repealing some of the causes like Mark to Market) it will self correct.
Bernanke can ignore everybody and just print more money.
Democracy and free markets? What democracy and free markets?
It is not the best course of action to resolve it (I've argued against bailouts before here) nor is it on its own enough to resolve the underlying problems but it would have been fast (and still can be) and calming compared to a non-bailout alternative (because such an alternative would as far as I can tell from what has happened demand a sharply different bureaucratic and political environment and lots of time to educate and convince --not going to happen).
So sadly introducing a non-bailout alternative at this point will just make things worse. Right now the financial world hangs by a single tread: the expectation that the bill will in some form get passed. I'm surprised it's holding but it's good.
If I understand it correctly the Senate is going to vote the complementary bill through tomorrow and as far as I can see the best opinion right now would be for the GOP Representatives to resubmit the same bill unchanged with an explanation akin to "We hate to do this but we have to, please don't ask us to defend it but we take responsibility for it and remember that there remains much to be done after this" and all vote in favor of it before leaving the ball for the D's to pick up.
And then if it passes comes the hard bit; it's not about more regulation but better regulation. I don't have my hopes up unless perhaps McCain-Palin wins the election.
> Wall Street donates at least as much to Democrats as it does to Republicans, if not more.
Lots more, and did so even when Repubs had congressional majorities.
"the unfortunate psychological notion that people hate Congress, but unaccountably think that their own Congressperson is great."
This concept actually makes a lot of sense to me - after all, I do think my own congressman is great. It comes down to the fact that he doesn't get his way on hardly anything, cause all those other congresspeople are in there voting wrong!
More seriously, the country is seriously divided, and yet Congress needs to come to a compromise to do anything. The definition of a good compromise is something that no one's happy with, but everyone agrees is better than nothing. So, you probably can't get a Congress that, as a whole, makes decisions that anyone's happy with, unless most people are in agreement to begin with. Nevertheless, your own Congressperson is on average much closer to your views - it's just that they're one of 435, and so there's only so much they can do.
Bill white wrote "...lies. like saddam's wmd." How do you explain that in july iraq sold 510 metric tons of yellowcake to cameco corp.?