More Clowns

The financial resuce bill which was introduced in the House today represents a compromise that was negotiated between the Rebublican and Democratic leadership and which addresses most of the objections to the administration bill which I raised here earlier. 

Well, we saw more clowns today in the House vote on the financial rescue bill.  While the Democrats delivered the votes to pass the bill, Republicans, voted against the bill in large enough numbers to sink it.  Apparently and incredibly, they claim that they voted against the bill because Nancy Pelosi hurt their feelings by pointing out how badly the Bush administration had mismanaged the economy.  

Rather than do what is necessary to try and save the economy and the country, the Republicans decided, like spoiled children, to hold their breath until the economy turns blue.  And amazingly, they did this on a Monday after five large bank failures over the weekend - one in Belgium, one in Germany, one in the UK, one in Iceland and Wachovia here in the U.S.  (Of course the FDIC insists that Wachovia didn't 'fail', but Citicorp snapped it up for $1 per share vs. $60 per share it was trading at a year ago and FDIC had to absorb a lot of the losses.

Of course, once it was apparent that the bill was failing, the stock market dropped like a stone - down 600+ as I type this.  Lest you think that this affects only big investors, keep in mind that more than half of Americans have their retirement savings invested in the stock market.  

Look for more corporate failures in the next several days as the Republican members of Congress pout.  It would be nice if they cared about their country more than they care about defending their disgraced President. 

Comments

[Michael Swartz]

If the Democrats are the majority party, all they had to do was enforce party unity to pass the measure - regardless of how Republicans voted.

Personally I'm glad it went down because there could be a much better alternative which comes up with some additional thought.

By the way, the market is up today and will pick back up a lot of what was lost yesterday.

[Marc]

I have to echo Mike's comment that it's bizarre to blame the GOP for defeating this bill when they don't have the majority. If the Democrats want to pass anything in the House they can do so. It's not like it's the Senate where a minority party can hold up action. Don't blame this on the GOP -- blame this on Nancy Pelosi's inability to enforce party unity.

BTW, I'm also with Mike that the failure to pass this is a good thing. The alarmist rhetoric surrounding its failure is ridiculous. As we have seen countless times, when politicians tell us we need to "act now" to avert catastrophe it's more likely that they are campaigning to give themselves more control over our lives. That's the last thing we need.

[Tom Wilson]

Thanks for your comments. It's true that the Dems were not unanimous in support of the bill - nobody expected that. Keep in mind though that this is a bill proposed by a Republican President of a Republican Administration. It's unrealistic to expect that you will get the bill passed without a reasonable level of Republican support.

The Republican caucus over the years has grown more homogenous, particularly as the socially moderate and fiscally conservative Republicans have been gradually eliminated. We'll see more of them go this election as the GOP becomes even more socially conservative and fiscally irresponsible.

The Dems, on the other hand, represent a broad range of opinion from the Blue Dogs to the liberal progressive wing. You're just not going to see all of them voting for anything.

Now, since the first bill failed, businesses have urged their employees to contact their representatives to support the replacement bill, so we're seeing a more even distribution of constituent sentiment.

I'm not sure about the idea that the bill will get better as time goes by. Already it's being loaded up like a Christmas tree. Meanwhile, the credit crunch continues. Banks continue to fail and people, even with good credit, are having trouble getting car loans. Something needs to be done.