Republicans Vote Down Bailout Plan
A total of 132 out of 199 Republicans voted against their whips and against their president despite a morning appearance by George W Bush urging them to approve the bill for the good of the nation.
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One analyst I heard a week or so ago claimed it doesn’t really matter, the US economy crashes whether the government makes an attempt at intervention or not.
Update: Bush speaks… says he’s “disappointed” - is there any greater indicator of just how freaking irrelevant he has become? He warned of dire consequences and was told to stuff it by his own party - there’s a legacy for him.
Update: A great image via Karbon
Update: Uber upper-right-quadrant-WingNut speaks on CNN… “the great depression is coming”
Update: Cynapse via Jacks News Watch has some good thoughts
Bruce this is way beyond partisan jabs and started way before Dems took the obnoxious step of redirecting funds to local poor people. Odd how the near-trillion dollar adventure of redirecting bombs toward foreign poor people never figures into these conversations. If you know the well is empty then why …
Update: Treasury Secretary Paulson speaks: he’s “disappointed”
Join the ranks of the irrelevant Secretary Paulson
Things are bound to get pretty sporty in the economy for the next while.
We should be doing the following
1) Cut taxes
2) increase spending
3) increase military spending and get involved in never ending wars
4) de-regulate to the max.
This is Harper’s Economic MO
Hey what could possible go wrong,… oh ya,… Bush,… America,… Economic FUBAR,… never mind.
Vote for a potted plant as PM, it would do a better job.
So it looks like a formation of an economic black hole.
The Great Depression II ?
I should have converted my mutual funds to cash in my RRSP’s earlier.
I hate Mondays.
95 Democrats also voted against it, defying their whips and party leaders.
Didn’t conservatism once stand for taking responsibility for things you had done?
I come home a minute ago to find Rudy Giuliani on CNN blasting Pelosi for only being able to bring 2/3rds of the Democrats on side - and that is why the bailout bill failed.
Sheesh, McCain managed to get less than 1/2 of the Republicans to come on side and he’s blaming that on Obama and his cohorts as well.
I think they did the right thing. Yeah, it’s risky, it’s scary. But to vote for this deal feels way too much like a blank cheque. It just didn’t sit right.
Somebody else noted something: why give money to the banks and investment firms that caused all this trouble? Why buy back their bad debt? Why not instead go out to those homes which are on the verge of foreclosure, and refinance them with some of this $700 billion? Why not create an American Mortgage and Housing Corporation and have this money trickle *up* rather than down for a change?
Didn’t conservatism once stand for taking responsibility for things you had done?
It depends. There is a brand of conservatism which allows the government to step in when the capitalist system fails. In Canada, it allowed the Canadian government to buy out the bankrupt competitors of Canadian Pacific, consolidating the assets into the crown corporation Canadian National. By maintaining competition as a crown corporation, Canadian Pacific was prevented from obtaining a monopoly in the Canadian railway industry, or in grain haulage. The railroad functioned for decades and was eventually sold off, becoming one of the continent’s giants.
In America, the collapse of passenger railroads led to the creation of Amtrak, and the collapse of Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Central, New Haven and an assortment of shortlines led to the creation of the government-run Conrail, which lasted for two decades before being bought out by Norfolk Southern.
I’m talking about the attitudes of [supposed] conservatives like McCain & Giuliani who are both blaming the Democrat camp for the failure of the bill when it was Republicans who didn’t step up to the plate.
Didn’t conservatism once stand for taking responsibility for things you had done?
Well, if the lenders, borrowers and the politicians and their supporters take the brunt for this (instead of being bailed out and/or laying claim to “saving” everybody) then all is again right with the world, except for those of us who will be hurt only because we were unable to stop them.
Certainly, neither the Democrats or the Republicans can claim any high ground on this one. And I guarantee: the more politicians try to “fix” this, the more they will muck it up.
From the Ann Coulter school of thought the following comment found on Russ Campbell’s Blog
Me thinks me detects some arrogance.