bailout dead

What are the politicians to do? It's the endgame of a two-year political campaign. They don't have the ability to remove partisanship from anything right now.

This has been the "same" problem trying to correct the tax codes and social security. Our government is really scared of their jobs in Washington DC if they do anything to make their constituents angry like they are today.

Brandon9000 wrote:

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

John McCain is toast!

BBB

Oh, of course. Today's vote will certainly kill the McCain candidacy. <-- sarcasm

Even in a national crisis, you continue to display the same "us vs them" attitude which is probably responsible for Congress's general inability to act.

Coming from a guy who called Obama 'Osama' the other day? You're pathetic, Brandon.

Cycloptichorn

i noticed that on several threads posters have asked : "where is the money going to come from ? " .
i've spent some time (probably too much time) watching and listening to what is going on in washington .
i have not heard any member of congress , senator , the secretary of the treasury or the president say : "we will raise the money by ... (fill in what you think is the right answer) " .
the possible answers might be : stopping the war in iraq , have specified tax increases , eliminate all subsidies to ... (again , you fill it in) .

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:

John McCain is toast!

BBB

Oh, of course. Today's vote will certainly kill the McCain candidacy. <-- sarcasm

Even in a national crisis, you continue to display the same "us vs them" attitude which is probably responsible for Congress's general inability to act.

Coming from a guy who called Obama 'Osama' the other day? You're pathetic, Brandon.

Cycloptichorn

Her only thought, when speaking about a national crisis in progress, was how badly it might hurt the opposition. My post the other day, which was intended pretty much as a joke, by the way, was not specifically addressing a crisis situation. I never said that partisanship was unacceptable, I just said, and correctly so, that it isn't very admirable or useful when specifically addressing a crisis in progress.

Quote:

i noticed that on several threads posters have asked : "where is the money going to come from ? " .
i've spent some time (probably too much time) watching and listening to what is going on in washington .
i have not heard any member of congress , senator , the secretary of the treasury or the president say : "we will raise the money by ... (fill in what you think is the right answer) " .
the possible answers might be : stopping the war in iraq , have specified tax increases , eliminate all subsidies to ... (again , you fill it in) .

Been wondering the same thing hamburger. (Also while keeping track election campaigning where raising taxes seems to be a major no no!) Where exactly is all this money going to come from? Something's gotta give, surely?

I think what happened is that democrats promised a certain number of votes and republicans promised a certain number of votes, but each side counted on the other to deliver while they each tried to sneak in their own "no" vote so they would look good to their constituents.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been promised that 80 or 90 Republicans would vote for the bill. That way, both parties could share responsibility. But in the end, just 66 Republican votes materialized.

According to my sources, once Pelosi learned of the double-cross, she told the Democratic whips to make it a conscience vote on the Democratic side as well. With the likelihood of voter indignation and the strong possibility that this bill would not fix what was broken, Pelosi was not prepared to make this primarily a Democratic bill. Knowing that the Republicans were walking away from the deal, she held the roll-call anyway, to make clear just whose failure this was.

When the vote came up short, she held it open a few minutes but made rounding up additional supporters the Republicans' problem. When the votes did not materialize, she banged the gavel, and the bill went down.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=what_now_08

When you get home and the curtains are on fire, it's not the time to try to figure out which kid lit the match. It's time to put the curtains out.

Rep. Pelosi's Remarks on Floor Ahead of House Bailout Vote

"Madam Speaker, when was the last time someone asked you for $700 billion?

It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush Administration's failed economic policies--policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.

Democrats believe in the free market, which can and does create jobs, wealth, and capital, but left to its own devices it has created chaos.

That chaos is the dismal picture painted by Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke a week and a half ago in the Capitol.

As they pointed out, we confront a crisis of historic magnitude that has the ability to do serious injury not simply to our economy, but to the American people: not just to Wall Street, but to everyday Americans on Main Street.

It is our responsibility today, to help avert that catastrophic outcome.
Let us be clear: This is a crisis caused on Wall Street. But it is a crisis that reaches to Main Street in every city and town of the United States.

It is a crisis that freezes credit, causes families to lose their homes, cripples small businesses, and makes it harder to find jobs.

It is a crisis that never had to happen. It is now the duty of every Member of this body to recognize that the failure to act responsibly, with full protections for the American taxpayer, would compound the damage already done to the financial security of millions of American families.

Over the past several days, we have worked with our Republican colleagues to fashion an alternative to the original plan of the Bush Administration.

I must recognize the outstanding leadership provided by Chairman Barney Frank, whose enormous intellectual and strategic abilities have never before been so urgently needed, or so widely admired.

I also want to recognize Rahm Emanuel, who combined his deep knowledge of financial institutions with his pragmatic policy experience, to resolve key disagreements.

Secretary Paulson deserves credit for working day and night to help reach an agreement and for his flexibility in negotiating changes to his original proposal.

Democrats insisted that legislation responding to this crisis must protect the American people and Main Street from the meltdown on Wall Street.

The American people did not decide to dangerously weaken our regulatory and oversight policies. They did not make unwise and risky financial deals. They did not jeopardize the economic security of the nation. And they must not pay the cost of this emergency recovery and stabilization bill.

So we insisted that this bill contain several key provisions:

This legislation must contain independent and ongoing oversight to ensure that the recovery program is managed with full transparency and strict accountability.

The legislation must do everything possible to allow as many people to stay in their homes rather than face foreclosure.

The corporate CEOs whose companies will benefit from the public's participation in this recovery must not benefit by exorbitant salaries and golden parachute retirement bonuses.

Our message to Wall Street is this: the party is over. The era of golden parachutes for high-flying Wall Street operators is over. No longer will the U.S. taxpayer bailout the recklessness of Wall Street.

The taxpayers who bear the risk in this recovery must share in the upside as the economy recovers.

And should this program not pay for itself, the financial institutions that benefited, not the taxpayers, must bear responsibility for making up the difference.

These were the Democratic demands to safeguard the American taxpayer, to help the economy recover, and to impose tough accountability as a central component of this recovery effort.

This legislation is not the end of congressional activity on this crisis. Over the course of the next few weeks, we will continue to hold investigative and oversight hearings to find out how the crisis developed, where mistakes were made, and how the recovery must be managed to protect the middle class and the American taxpayer.

With passage of this legislation today, we can begin the difficult job of turning our economy around, of helping those who depend on a growing economy and stable financial institutions for a secure retirement, for the education of their children, for jobs and small business credit.

Today we must act for those Americans, for Main Street, and we must act now, with the bipartisan spirit of cooperation which allowed us to fashion this legislation.

This not enough. We are also working to restore our nation's economic strength by passing a new economic recovery stimulus package--a robust, job creating bill--that will help Americans struggling with high prices, get our economy back on track, and renew the American Dream.

Today, we will act to avert this crisis, but informed by our experience of the past eight years with the failed economic leadership that has left us left capable of meeting the challenges of the future.

We choose a different path. In the new year, with a new Congress and a new president, we will break free with a failed past and take America in a New Direction to a better future."

Re: msolga (Post 3419487)
msolga wrote:

Quote:
i noticed that on several threads posters have asked : "where is the money going to come from ? " .
i've spent some time (probably too much time) watching and listening to what is going on in washington .
i have not heard any member of congress , senator , the secretary of the treasury or the president say : "we will raise the money by ... (fill in what you think is the right answer) " .
the possible answers might be : stopping the war in iraq , have specified tax increases , eliminate all subsidies to ... (again , you fill it in) .


Been wondering the same thing hamburger. (Also while keeping track election campaigning where raising taxes seems to be a major no no!) Where exactly is all this money going to come from? Something's gotta give, surely?


It's all loans, period. The money will come from loans from China and other countries. Even if we ended the war in Iraq, it would STILL be loans, b/c the war is paid for by loans too.

Geez, the whole thing sucks

Cycloptichorn

i noticed that on several threads posters have asked : "where is the money going to come from ? " .
i've spent some time (probably too much time) watching and listening to what is going on in washington .
i have not heard any member of congress , senator , the secretary of the treasury or the president say : "we will raise the money by ... (fill in what you think is the right answer) " .

The idea that anything in this speech was so partisan, so offensive in nature, as to cause someone to change their vote? That is plainly ridiculous on it's face. This isn't that partisan a speech. Her references to Bush are passing at most.

By Steven Pearlstein
Tuesday, September 30, 2008; Page D01

Oy vey.

That is the technical economic term that best sums up a day in which the House of Representatives refuses to pass a $700 billion rescue plan pushed by the White House and congressional leaders from both parties, Wachovia is taken over in a deal that will have the government potentially owning 10 percent of Citigroup, a few European banks fail, the Federal Reserve and other central banks are forced to inject an additional $300 billion into the global banking system, the Dow Jones industrial average plunges 777 points, and investors everywhere rush to the safety of gold and short-term Treasury bills.

The basic problem here is that too many people don't understand the seriousness of the situation.

Americans fail to understand that they are facing the real prospect of a decade of little or no economic growth because of the bursting of a credit bubble that they helped create and that now threatens to bring down the global financial system.

Politicians worry less about preventing a financial meltdown than about ideology, partisan posturing and teaching people a lesson. Financiers have yet to own up publicly to their own greed, arrogance and incompetence. And leaders of foreign governments still think that this is an American problem and that they have no need to mount similar rescue efforts in their own countries