This is non-political? I would have said it was the very definition of political!
ETA: What is AUMF? I’m sure I’m missing something quite obvious here.
Senators don’t speak for the House. Give me a quote from Boehner that said they had a deal, and then your point will be made. Lacking that, you’re just grasping at straws.
And you offer a false dichotomy when you suggest that lack of knowledge (or incorrect knowledge) = lying.
Jesus Christ, are you actually going to go with THAT as your defense? There’s a difference between a “plan” and a “deal,” number one, and number two, the linked article also says this:
(Modifications to the first word are mine)
Thank Heaven we have Chairman McCain and Commissar Palin to do battle with the running dogs of the Ruling Class and the predatory jackals of the Wall Street! At long last, the iron grip of the Democrat party is broken, and we can begin to repair the dire effects of their misrule!
Let us all praise the Great Helmsman, Chairman McCain, and the People’s Republican Party!
“Authorization for Use of Military Force,” aka the resolution passed by Congress that the hawks have been pointing to ever since and saying “but the Demmycrats wanted to invade Iraq too!” as cover for their desert misadventures.
Boehner had been against it from the start. When it was announced there was a deal, it meant that both the Senate and House committees had reached a deal that they believed could and would be supported across the aisle in both houses. There were always going to be some people who would not support this bill. What was not expected was that the Republican leadership would dig in its heels and forbid its members from voting for the bill as presented by the committees. And at this point I don’t know if that’s happening or not. It certainly was not anticipated by the committees at midday yesterday.
If it is happening, we don’t know whether or not McCain’s coming to D.C. had any influence on its doing so. My guess is that McCain realized he was making things worse or that he was in a really trapped position himself and decided to get the hell out of Dodge.
The fact is, we don’t know the internals of what happened, and we probably never will.
The longer I live the more I appreciate John Adams’ terror of “the Mob”. What scares me the most about this is the looming election’s effect on both parties. Both parties are desperate to be seen as The Saviors in this and on every issue have an eye towards how it will spin. While I certainly have no problem with accountability of politicians, the simple fact is MOST AMERICANS DO NOT UNDERSTAND COMPLEX FINANCIAL MATTERS (especially of this Herculean a magnitude) and really fucking big numbers are a lot easier to spin than really complex ramifications.
I should point out that I’m not pointing fingers at “American idiots”. I freely admit that I’m way over my head in understanding exactly what’s going on and there’s never been a bailout of this magnitude to really base this on (especially when we’re as broke as we are now), but at least
1- I confess my ignorance
2- I’m trying desperately to remedy it with everything from wikipedia to “___for Dummies” to government documents to scholarly articles- it ain’t easy
3- I want the best plan to be implemented and I don’t care if comes from a Socialist think-tank or something Pat Robertson saw in a dream about cows
This is probably the most important fiscal decision of our times. It can’t be left up to the politicians pandering to the poll numbers and thus to the TLDR Masses-of-Asses who base their opinions on a combination of pithy soundbytes and whoever spoke last. (One reason that I love Obama- but also what scares me most about his electability- is that he doesn’t try to paint complex issues as simple “fer it” “agin it” matters; you can almost see his cogs and gears turning as he evaluates information 18 different ways.)
My ideal would be- if it’s possible and I’ve no idea if it is- a “duct tape” temporary remedy, something that can handle it exactly as much as it needs to be handled for just 6 weeks. At that time, both parties can sit down at the tables, roll up their sleeves, pull out their knives, etc., and NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT HOW IT AFFECTS THEIR OWN RE-ELECTION OR THEIR PARTY’S MAJORITY OR HOW IT SPINS.
I’m truly terrified of Congressmen from both sides saying “Well, if we support Plan A then this economy is totally FUBAR in 4 years, but if we support Plan B it’ll be spun as ‘they hate America’ and we’ll lose 12 seats in the Senate and 48 in the House. Well, Hail Mary- we can’t do anything if we’re not in office, vote for Plan A.”
Thanks, Cervaise. Yes, I remember how strongly we all favored it. :rolleyes: And I must say, this has made me wonder if this wasn’t the same kind of manufactured crisis, that didn’t exist before September, and suddenly appeared out of nowhere simply by being announced by the administration. But this time there were actually events in the real world this time that precipitated it. The collapse of Lehman Bros and AIG, and the looming problem of the sub-prime mortgages that I’d been hearing about for a couple of years. Add to that the fact that Bush derives no benefit from this one, unlike from Iraq, and I’m unfortunately willing to believe that this time, unlike Iraq, the emergency is all too real.
I’m pretty certain that the Republican talking head on Anderson Cooper last night mentioned that none of the congressionals from either party were really in any danger of losing their seats in the elections. I don’t know of any “throw the bums out” grassroots movements going on, and it’d take more time than we have left before the elections to get one moving.
I think that the only election politics deciding things nowadays is presidential election politics.
This is kind of strange; politics does indeed make strange bedfellows - people of both parties think the deal stinks. I’m not keen on it, either. I don’t think there’s a darn thing wrong with taking the time to figure out something better, or at least explore that possibility. Nobody’s in any hurry to do what Bush says, anyway.
When I saw McCain on TV last night (I think it was CNN), his body language was that of a stuffed squirrel. He was clearly uncomfortable, and not just with the financial future of our glorious nation, either. He didn’t have a heckuva lot to say, other than some shopworn platitude about country first; no specifics about the deal at all. On the other hand, Obama was on and calmly stated the 4 conditions under which he would be in favor of a deal and why. Oh, and reiterated that a president is going to need to be able to do more than one thing at once. The contrast was stark.
There is a huge emotional revulsion in America about this bailout, and the Pubbies are hoping to grasp this straw before it slips through their fingers. All that is required is for them to re-brand themselves as the People’s Republican Party, forthrightly defending the proletariat from the evil machinations of the ruling class rich and the jackals of Wall Street.
The problem is, you, I, and the rest of the ordinary people wouldn’t know a good solution from a bad if it knocked us upside the head and invited us to do the Charleston. And the people who are supposed to be experts have about as many different opinions as there are people. No matter what is decided, there are going to be people who are certain that it is the right thing to do, and people who are equally certain that it is the end of America (and possibly the world economy) as we know it.
The committees took about a week to hammer out the best plan they could, balancing urgency against caution. The only blatant pandering to voters they did, to my mind actually serves a function - I don’t think executives should be able to walk away with lots of tax payer dollars and big bonuses; I think it sends the wrong message to Wall Street about this kind of risk taking. Other than that, everything else seems to simply be reasonable conditions and precautions hedging the original Treasury request. We could take it in a totally different direction instead, but Treasury is screaming at us that we need it NOW, and the performance on Wall Street seems to support that. So I think we need to just get on with it. We can second guess ourselves from here to the Second Coming, but there’s never going to be complete consensus.
I would also mention that any plan can later be amended, and I agree with **Sampiro **
I don’t see that, the Republicans are desperate to prevent the Democrats from obtaining really significant majorities in the Senate and the House.
Exactly. We are in the process of watching legislation being made, in real time. It ain’t pretty, and anyone who thinks that’s unusual is simply naive.
I certainly agree that short term politics should not be what drive this vote. And to give credit, I don’t think they are, at least for the committees. No one wants this bill, and no one wants to vote for a $700 billion give away. They are trusting Paulson and the evidence they’ve seen over the past weeks enough to believe it’s necessary.
I’m not sure you can amend from bailout to loans, though. It depends on how quickly things move. At least you can thank committees for limiting it to $350 billion, with approval required for another $350 billion, rather than the whole shebang without oversight as originally requested. Now whether or not it should be loans instead of gifts? I don’t know enough to judge. I don’t now if the burden of additional debt will be too great on the recipients, and I don’t know if ownership of a stake in these companies won’t be the better pay-off for the tax-holders. Here is where you need considerably greater expertise than I have.
As for the politics? I certainly think the House and Senate races are significant, but I think the most of the primary architects of this plan are in “safe” seats. However, people may alter their votes for other members of Congress based on whether or not they vote for whatever ends up coming before Congress in the end. Although the presidential race is the primary focus this year, this crisis has certainly brought Congress back into the spotlight for voters.
Yeah, none of these guys wants to vote for this stinker, and the House Dems are scared shitless to pass it without significant Republican votes. The Republicans obviously know this, and so it goes. Still, I’m OK with them deliberating about this issue a few more days. Bush has crammed thru a lot of lousy legislation during his tenure, and I don’t want to see him do it again.
To go ahead ,we have to fix what went wrong. We have to redo the Glass/Steagall act so this will not go on. We have to put in regulation . We have to open the books of the financial institutions. We are not even able to find out how much bad debt they took on. We have to regulate the compensation of any company that gets the tax money. These guys were looting for years and they will love to get their greedy little talons on all that tax money. We have to prosecute any one who broke laws . They do not deserve the trust of the American taxpayer. The time for believing they have the best interests of America at heart is way past.
Hear, hear!
And I also want to see the candidates campaigning. The public needs to hear from them about these issues, not watch them disappear into endless meetings.
I think we are going to unprecedented scrutiny of McCain’s and Obama’s pick for Treasury Secretary. In fact, I want to see them name their picks well before the election, and it better not be some Wall Street insider. I’d also like to see a prohibition of anyone working for the Treasury Dept to go into the private banking sector for X number of years after leaving that dept. I don’t know what X needs to be, but something long enough so that we don’t have some revolving door shuttling Wall Street insiders into and out of Treasury.
Make it 10 years, why not? Surely there are enough competent economists around that don’t have their hearts set on becoming billionaires that we can find one to meet a high standard of ethics. An ex-Treasury Secretary will be able to work at any university s/he desires. That oughtta be enough.
Daniel