More Blogger Reactions to Bailout Defeat
Some major bloggers starting to weigh in.
As a friend notes, the longer they wait, the busier the FDIC gets. This, I must point out, also costs the US taxpayer money, and there’s no chance we’ll get any of it back, either.
A journalist friend who spends way more time on politics than I do suggests that if the Democrats cave and include a capital gains tax, it will probably pass–but puts the odds of the Democrats caving at slim to none, since they can now blame any resulting crash on the Republicans.
I didn’t think it was possible to be more disgusted with politicians than I usually am, but I find it impossible to express the seething contempt that I feel at this kind of opportunism. I don’t mind when they screw with the normal operation of the economy for venal personal gain. But risking a recession in order to get a cut in the capital gains tax? Letting it tank because you can always blame it on the Republicans?
I am grimly reminded of H.L. Mencken’s famous observation that Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Hugh Hewitt, the conservative talk-radio host blames Democrats:
The bill failed in the House by a 228 to 205 vote, with 94 Democrats voting against it, a cynical exercise in manipulating the financial crisis for the Dems perceived political advantage. They think that blame for the worsening credit market will fix to Republicans and John McCain. That Pelosi et al stampeded tens of thousands of panicked investors out of the market today at some considerable loss to their hard work over the years means nothing to them. The jobs they are sacrificing to panic means nothing to them.
The only thing that matters to the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Democrats is power.
This is the bottom line: Democrats defeated this bill, and cooly walked out to denounce the House Republicans. Just as the Dems demonstrated during the long debate over off-shore drilling, they do not care a whit about the impact of their Beltway doings provided they think it will bring them more seats and greater power and perhaps the presidency.
Author David Sirota, writing on Huffington Post sees the thumbs-down is harbinger of a populist uprising:
Those who are surprised by this turn of events just haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on out in the country – they haven’t been paying attention to, for instance, the social survey research showing rising rage against both our corrupt government and Corporate America. During my 3 month book tour, I faced a wave of skepticism from the Establishment media about my thesis. This earthquake on the floor of the U.S. House should end that skepticism once and for all.
Just as I said in the book that it’s not clear what is going to come out of the Left-Right grassroots uprising throughout the country, it’s not clear what is going to come out of this uprising in Congress. Will Democratic leaders tack to the hard right, load the bill up with corporate tax cuts and pass this bill with only Republican votes? Or will they actually be leaders of the Democratic Party, make this bill a vehicle for the kind of New Deal-style investments and regulations that are necessary to start rebuilding this country, and pass this bill with full Democratic Party support?
This is the question moving forward.
The Moderate Voice’s Michael Stickings believes this is just a prelude to ultimate passage:
I still think a bailout bill in some form — if not this one, after some arm-twisting, then this one with some alterations to appease both sides and to make Congress appear to be more united than it really is — will be passed sooner rather than later. The leadership of both parties is behind it — the Democratic leaders more than their Republican counterparts — and there will be increasing pressure on Congress to do something. (And, right now, this bill is all they’ve got.) Not least because the markets are tumbling.
