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I am on vacation.I spent yesterday driving around Yellowstone, listening to CSpan and the pre-discussion before the bail out bill.
If you listened to all the information around the bill you would know that both D's and R's have legit reasons for being against this bill.
Too much money, not enough accountability, too much accumulation of power in the executive branch, not enough time for review, not enough time for consideration of alternative ideas, giving money to the foxes guarding the henhouse, the economists who think it is a bad idea, while at the same time acknowledging "something" needs to be done to restore confidence. etc etc.
There are other precedents being resurrected. The banking failure in the 80's, when hundreds of banks actually did go under. The tools of bankruptcy, receivership, and low interest loans are all in the quivers of public recovery... .instead we need a "bail out". The word is offensive to me as a single tax solidly middle class tax payer. Why have we not learned from history?
Just say no.
In listening to the discussion, I was finding myself agreeing with the R's on this one. Although plenty of D's were against it also.
To have fear based politics come into play exactly at the end of a legislative session is much too Rovian for me--and I don't think it is a coincidence.
Being in sales, I have a couple of principles that I like to observe in deal making. Is the ORIGINAL deal workable? The answer to that question was obvious from the beginning with Paulson taking all the power, all the money, and saying "trust me". A deal that starts that way is not a deal. It is a strong arm from a dictator. Not American. Not democratic. Deals like this disregard all of my principles that I use to decide if I want to even "do business" with someone. It is like Dwight (in The Office) yelling "sell me your car NOW.... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.... Do it Do it DO IT!". Sorry, no deal. Yelling about it won't help.
On the 228 to 205 congressional vote, 140 Democrats voted yes and 95 voted no; 133 Republicans opposed the measure, while 65 approved. This is apparently all we remember about the bill--rather than the discussion just minutes before the vote. Why do I say that? Minutes AFTER the vote, D's and R's lined up to blame each other for the failure to pass the bill. Huh? R's who apparently were for the bill blamed Pelosi's partisan speech before the vote. (whatever--and listening to it twice, I know what they were talking about--but for these POLITICIANS to be offended by POLITICS? Pullllease). D's blamed the R's for not coming to the table. HUH. Minutes before they were praising each other for coming to the table to draft a bipartisan bill. Then, and I almost had to stop my car to laugh out loud. McCain blames Obama?! If you don't want to listen to the pre-debate over the bill, just look at the vote--here it is again--"On the 228 to 205 congressional vote, 140 Democrats voted yes and 95 voted no; 133 Republicans opposed the measure, while 65 approved." Pretty obvious if you ask me. The vote was split, and many politicians stood up to their principles... not holding their nose to vote this time. They said NO.
Maybe the NO vote will allow these idiots time to do what should have been done in the first place. Let's start with democracy.
Public discussion. Expert analysis. Focus. Priority. Accountability. Transparency. For me, a finely crafted and focused bill, based on fact and good confidence levels, would provide me far more faith than coffee and pizza fueled light night sessions on the hill.
