After one spectacular failure, the $700 billion financial industry bailout found a second life Wednesday, speeding toward passage in the Senate and gaining ground in the House where conservative opposition seemed to soften.
Senators loaded the economic rescue bill with tax breaks and other sweeteners for the right and left, hoping to secure approval in the House by Friday, just days after lawmakers there stunningly rejected an earlier version and sent markets plunging around the globe.
The measure has not caused the same uproar in the Senate, where both parties’ presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, were making rare appearances to vote their support. That would send the package back to the House, where passage would require a turnaround of 12 votes from Monday’s 228-205 defeat.
It’s worse than ever, filled to the brim with pork and unrelated pet projects. Nothing but a dreadful hog-call, a purse snatch of epic proportions. [url=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14161.html]Details[/url]
Which means it’s a cinch to pass. God help us.
A clear comprehension of a problem should result in a broad plan with clear and succinct language that is easy to comprehend.
The proposed book length (450 pages?) Senate plan shows that that legislative body does not have a clear comprehension of the problem at hand.
Instead, they are ready to put the American tax payers (not those free-loaders riding on the tax payers’ backs) deeply in depth with a poorly thought out plan that takes Congress off the hook (but only in the short term).
In my comment #2, please change
“…deeply in depth with a poorly thought out plan…”
to read
“…deeply in debt with a poorly thought out plan….”
After receiving so many unsolicited offers of credit and after shredding so many pre-approved checks I have to wonder if there really is a credit crisis.
Maybe the problem is that there are simply more Banks and Financial Institutions than the U.S. economy can reasonably be expected to sustain in other words, [b]too many institutions for too few qualified borrowers[/b] . If this is the problem a bail-out will just make the problem worse.
Both parties are to blame and both should suffer at the polls. Remember that while each party has had a congressional majority over the last several years the other has had enough numbers to block any action. When the Republicans had the numbers the Democrats often insisted that legislation pass by a 2/3ds majority to cut off debate.
The plain simple fact is that each side wants to win and to blame the other for any failure or manufactured failure.
#5, you are correct. That is why the speech of Speaker Pelosi just before the House vote was so galling and why Barney Frank’s statement about “feelings being hurt” was even more galling. See WSJ today on Frank’s asking the two CEOs of Fan and Fred at 2003 hearing if they thought they needed more regulation, and when they said “no,” Frank said he then saw no need for further hearings. (BTW, those CEOs are Obama’s financial advisors today, after they received huge severance packages – and they were in Jimmy Carter’s cabinet).