That’s a true maverick … throw our money around like it was candy. Who needs Congress, right, George? Don’t need ‘em to go to war, don’t need ‘em to bail out your buddies. Sweet.

In the real world, people who want loans (and not the no-doc or other sleazy vehicles, but the “normal” loans) typically need to be able to define what the money will be used for, down to the dollar.

If Bush, Bernake and Paulson haven’t done their homework and cannot even apply for a loan from us, the taxpayers, (how ironic is that?) without documentation of what the money will be spent on, then we, my friends, will BECOME the banks that pushed no-doc loans as a means to an end. Let’s not fall for that. Sure the market is tanking, but, contrary to popular belief, investors still want to make money, and they would appreciate something that first works on paper being used as the basis for the bigger plan.

We have the time to plan carefully, prudently and wisely, based on what we are even now learning. Let’s not jump head-over-heels into another bad scenario that could easily result in making the crisis WORSE, and ALSO leave us with no more money left to throw at it. I mean, sure, we’ve got $700B lying around just for this purpose, but where will the next $700B come from?

We need action, and we need it very soon, and I would consider it a serious failing of the Dem party if during this moment when they have the power to act unilaterally, they stall to hold press conferences and score partisan points. That’s not leadership.

You assume that this bailout is a good thing, and that the Dems should be united in thinking that it is a good thing.

While your perspective is sincere, your assumptions are incorrect: Not only is this Repub-spawned bailout (”We’ll take all of your bad debt so you can go about your normal business”) a very BAD idea, but it’s a creepy miracle that a majority of Dems actually supported it, preferring (apparently) to project the image of bipartisanship for the purposes of protecting themselves whichever way the wind blew rather than to make a reasoned judgement and then be able to defend it.

There are many arguments made in support of taking NO action, and letting the hoodlums who have been gaming the system for decades take the fall. Or of taking no action to “save” Wall Street but to rather taking action to support “Main Street” when the bottom falls out. Or of taking no action in any case, and to simply let the free market do what it needs to do to correct this.

Interesting theory…

====

I absolutely _agree_ with you. If anything, this is _independent_ thinking on the part of House Repubs, and thinking critically about the bill rather than voting with Bush. One would think that’s a _good_ thing.

But the point is that the Dems are out hitting hard with the narrative that somehow the Repubs have killed this thing. But that’s not even mathematically POSSIBLE.

So why are they doing it? Why not push it through, if that’s what they want?

Let me offer another narrative: The Dems are scared to DEATH that this is a hard decision they’ll have to take credit for. They want it to be bipartisan so that if we second guess it five years or ten years later, they can say, “Hey look – the Repubs were for it, too!”

We need action, and we need it very soon, and I would consider it a serious failing of the Dem party if during this moment when they have the power to act unilaterally, they stall to hold press conferences and score partisan points. That’s not leadership.

To say that Repubs have the power to stall this is an out-and-out lie.

September 29th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

I’d prefer to have a political party that didn’t walk in lock-step ; unlike what we all saw for the 1st 6 years of Chimpy’s godawful presidency , with a totally complicit GOP dominated Congress…………..

Today it closed at 10,372.

If you had invested your social security in the market, as George W. Bush and John Sidney McCain III wanted you to do, you would have less money now than you did eight years ago.

Something to think about.”

Actually, there are also dividends.

“- To pass a bill in the House, you only need a SIMPLE MAJORITY.”

This was designed as a bipartisan bitter pill, if it was only up to the Dems to vote for it, they could have written a Democratic bill that suits only their ideas.

I think the tactic was this:
The Republicans wanted the Democrats to vote for the bitter pill, but wanted to vote so much against it that they’d be able to tell everyone afterward that most of them voted against the bill if it doesn’t work as advertised.
Gambling gone wrong.

Compared to the lockstep herd voting we are used to, this is huge news. What is most newsworthy is that the GOP herd has been scattered and House Republicans are voting on the merits, regardless of their motives, instead of to show unity. And, to all appearances, the House functioned as it should have and stopped a bad piece of legislation.

That crystal ball he got for a bargain during one of his Iraqi visits ain’t quite as good as he thought.

September 29th, 2008 at 4:15 pm

Actually , the Dow’s final closing number was 10,365.45…….

So one is forced to ask why Dems are so determined to paint this as a Republican sabotage, when the Dems could do this without the Repubs, and 40% of Dems voted against it?

‘I don’t know much about economics, but I know a lot about lying’

tombaker Says:

36 -I caught Tarbro’s jabber too – for some reason he thinks it impossible that the failed vote today was the result of Republican’t treachery (which it very clearly was).

Why is “savvy insider” Joe Tarbro such a naive sucker??

Scarborough is not the sharpest tack in the box AND he’s a jerk.

The man and his judgment are PATHETIC.