Bail Out, Out?
The House of Representatives voted down the Administration’s proposed Wall Street bail out and many were left yesterday wondering why. Here are some reasons.
1, Surprisingly President George W Bush has spent all his “political capital” won in the 2004 election and was unable to secure any credit with which he could try again. He is less than a lame duck.
2. President Bush has not the slightest idea of what the proposed legislation covers and even less of an idea about what might happen if the bill passes or even it doesn’t.
3. John McCain has played this issue right down the middle, and so, feels he is able to declare victory regardless of whether the bill passed or was voted down. That’s leadership!
4. Senator Harry Reid and Speak Nancy Pelosi did a half ass job of organizing the actual vote (unless of course you suspect that they did not care whether it passed or not since the longer economy’s uncertainty remains on “page 1″, the more advantage flows to Democrats).
5. The American public does not understand what exactly has happened, why it happened, or how the “fix” will fix the mess. Americans can discern, however, that their government has let them down and they are weary of doing a “Charlie Brown” and believing George “Lucy” Bush will hold the football this time.
6. There are few public officials who have studied the great depression and what exactly did Herbert Hoover not do that preceded the stock market crash. History, if anything, does repeat.
7. There is far more wrong with the American economy than this current (and serious) melt down on Wall Street. The housing bubble burst, the lagging in real income growth for the average American, and the inflation driven rise in the cost of living (read commodities, gas, oil, etc) are all elements that make for harder times for Americans. Fixing Wall Street will not fix them.
My guess is that Congress will pass a bail out bill soon, maybe next week. They will do it as the melt-down’s adverse consequences are more easily visible to Americans and a much better political story is presented to Americans on why this bail out should proceed. I do not expect to see any leadership from George W Bush and we will all be better off if McCain and Obama keep to campaigning instead of trying to score political points during this crisis.
This entry was posted on September 30, 2008 at 3:30 pm and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, George Bush, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: bail out, economy, wall street
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