A 2000 Republican National Committee Ad railing against Al Gore for proposing new spending. It’s amazing how a few years changes everything. Just goes to show how disappointed many of us Republicans are with the way our party has gone over the past four years in terms of it’s total disregard for fiscal responsibility.
I’m doing something I haven’t done in a long time - respectfully, yet diametrically disagreeing with Neil.
In order to understand the failure, we should first look at where this plan originated - the Bush Administration. This was a brokered bill; nonetheless, the original framework for the bailout was crafted by the Administration, lead by Treasury Secretary Paulson. Like virtually anything that could had had a chance of passing the Untied States Congress, the final iteration of the bill was a compromise through and through. In order to get behind the bill, Dems got executive pay limits added for companies selling their mortgages to the government as well as the ability to have controlling shares of some companies, and the Administration got their $700 billion.
Notice how I’m saying the ‘Administration’ instead of Republicans. Minority Leader Boehner’s support for the plan was late and tenuous at best. His lukewarm support reflected that of the Republican membership. 66% of House Republicans voted against the bill - one that was framed by their President. I understand that as the rift between George Bush ‘big-government’ Repubicans and ‘fiscal conservatve’ Republicans grow, it is politically less tenable to side with the President. But when nearly 60% of House Democrats voted for the bill, it’s hard to say the Democrats didn’t do their part.
With the way congress works, Speaker Pelosi can only deliver Democrats - and she did deliver Democrats for a bill that was framed by a Republican President’s Administration. It was Boehner’s responsibility to put country first and bring along more Republicans to support a president of his very own political party; he failed to do so.
Pelosi isn’t free of blame, but with the way Congress functions you can’t heap all the blame on the Speaker. In looking at the vote totals, Boehner is more at fault than she.
And on a side note, welcome Eric to the debate that never ends 
I am glad to say the bailout bill failed this afternoon. Even though we paid dearly with a near 800 point drop in the DOW Average, the blocking of this bill was a huge step forward.
I’m not sure who Speaker Pelosi was thinking when she gave her speech around 12:20pm, but she forgot who was in her audience. Pelosi gave one of the most divisive speeches I’ve heard. If she was making any attempt to unify Congress behind this bill, she failed miserably.
When you are attempting to bring two parties together, you do not attack one of the groups. That is stupid and it reflects upon Pelosi’s ability to lead this Congress.
She must be replaced. There is no option on this matter. Pelosi has failed her party, but even worse, she has failed her people.
I’ve spent hours combing over articles in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, and blogs. It seems to me that this Paulson Plan is pretty far from getting any sort of okay from Congress, and I honestly hope it stays that way. Purchasing all this costs way too much money when all we really need to do is get the market for this stuff moving.
Of everything I’ve read, I find the proposal of top economist, Brian Wesbury. The plan has been most promoted by Dave Ramsey, the “Get out of Debt Guy.” While I sometimes question Dave’s macroeconomic theories, I think he’s made an excellent choice in going towards Brian’s (and likely other economists’) plan.
While Mark-to-Market sounds great in reality, in practice it has a major exception that causes it to fail. Unfortunately, we’ve hit that failure. Mark-to-market accounting requires companies to “mark” assets to their current value on the marketplace. This works great for assets that are sold on a day to day basis like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc. However, there is currently no market for sub-prime instruments. Nobody will buy them. Therefore, when Merrill Lynch was forced to sell its sub-prime assets for 22 cents on the dollar it became apparent that mark-to-market was vastly undervaluing the “true” value of the assets.
Furthermore, we don’t need to buy all these assets - we simply need to create a market for them. Instead of buying toxic assets, lets allow the federal government to insure the loans. These assets will then become “un-toxic” to an extent and the market should restart.The best part of this plan is that it will cost around $35-40 billion to insure these loans.
While I don’t like bailing out people, it’s apparent something is going to happen and I think this is the best proposal that has a chance as getting through Congress.
When Gov. Sarah Palin stated she said “Thanks, but no thanks” on the famous “Bridge to Nowhere” project she opened herself up a major can of worms. I’m personally not a huge Sarah Palin fan, I don’t feel she has the necessary experience and I don’t think she’s ready for the Vice Presidency. Now although I still haven’t decided my vote this November, I’m sure Palin’sperformance over the coming weeks will play a role in my final decision.
However, Palin needs to cut the talk about earmarks. Before you try and argue that she has room to talk watch this CNN special.
All great change in America begins at the dinner table.
