The Solution
This from Rex Nutting seems a little over-dramatic to me:
Now we shall see if Paulson and Bernanke were right when they said the credit crisis could worsen and inflict dire consequences on the global economy…. Rejection of the plan means there’s no political solution to this financial crisis on the horizon. As it now stands, the markets are on their own. The next six weeks will tell whether the coup d’etat in the House on Monday has created a political crisis to match the financial one.
Isn’t the most likely scenario that as the House takes the day off for the Jewish Holiday, the GOP leadership rounds up ten new votes from safe incumbents that are then routinely matched by ten new Democratic votes and basically the same thing that failed on Monday passes on Wednesday? The House conservatives who killed the bill have no plan B so I have a hard time seeing them staying firm. In the interim, folks should be exploring the possibility of writing a bill that could pass the house with exclusively progressive votes, since the progressive side does have a plan B. But it seems unlikely that it’ll actually come to that.
38 Responses to “The Solution”
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September 30th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Any new or renewed efforts to pass a bill suffer from the continued threat of the McCain campaign mucking up the process. Is there anyone within the Republican party with the stature and political clout to tell him to just STFU for a few days and let cooler (and more intelligent) heads prevail?
September 30th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Why not listen to someone like Robert Reich? Why not do some temporary measure, instead of getting stampeded into a gigantic, dangerous, enormously (or at least excitedly) unpopular measure which some really knowledgeable economists think would actually harm us more than not having it?
Reich:
Roubini:
September 30th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Steve, just like McCain seems to have gone too far with the press, which is no longer shielding his campaign, perhaps he’s gone too far with Bush.
After all, McCain is wholly unnecessary. The only Republican that matters in these negotiations is Bush, and now McCain has fucked with Bush’s legacy.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Stiglitz:
Dean Baker:
September 30th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Economy going into the crapper even with a bailout:
FROM: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aV62_cIZzrM4&refer=us
Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. may face its longest recession in a quarter century no matter what action Congress takes on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion plan to rescue the battered banking industry……
That’s gonna make people real happy. Congress wastes tons of their money and then the economy craps out anyway.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:57 am
The House Republicans said that they had the votes but did not deliver. The Democrats stuck their necks out plenty for something that wasn’t originally their idea. There’s no way that the Democrats are going to stick out their necks again for George Bush.
If anything is to be done, the Democrats will put together a bill of their own and pass that in a straight party-line vote. Bush has no standing to complain about this because he didn’t deliver his side.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:06 am
As I noted before, I think the House GOP’s plan was to stick the Democrats with the political cost of passing an unpopular bill. Now I think they miscalculated about the immediate fallout of the bill not being passed, but I just think that means they are going to double down and hope to still manage some sort of political benefit in the long run.
Accordingly, I think it is actually more likely something gets done on party lines right now, and I think that is likely to be something modest along the lines of Reich’s proposal.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:11 am
You gotta love David Brooks. Yes, that David Brooks:
One can only hope, and pray, that Brooks is right. And I think to some extent once the Republican party de-aligns, at least as I see their electoral incentives, from being run by the right wing nutbag authoritarian market fundamentalist extremists from the South and West, and splits back into a moderate business Republican Party versus a crazy social revanchist party based mainly in the South, he’ll be right.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Sorry, link to Brooks.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:16 am
The only good explanation for the failure of Congress to pass this thing yesterday is the House Republicans are trying to sabotage the Obama presidency.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:18 am
I agree except for the “party line” part. I think if the bill is reduced to $150B (or something considerably less than $700B), many Republicans will come on board, having been given some cover. They can say they wanted a more “fiscally responsible” bill and got it. After the market drop yesterday, many Republicans who voted “no” must be feeling nervous. After all, lots of their constituents just lost a lot of money. So they’ll be looking for a way to correct this without looking like flip-floppers. If the Dems offer up a Robert Reich-style bill, it might be just the ticket for these nervous Republicans.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:23 am
1) The stock futures indicate that the stock market will open with a rise of 1.5 -2 percent. A partial offset to yesterday’s 7 percent drop.
2) The salient factors in Congressional minds are going to be:
a) Further bailouts of Wall Street will piss off the voters big time
b) It’s not clear how much, if any, the bailouts will help alleviate the oncoming recession much less whether the current bailout is the best option. And if Members of Congress don’t see much upside then the voters won’t either
c) If the Bailout is not passed, Most negative developments in the economy will develop after the election — too late for it to hurt an incumbent’s prospects
d) The counter to voter outrage is financial donor outrage. Presumably, wealthy donors are pissed at taking it in the shorts and their yells are countering the complaints of the grass roots. The much cited claim that calls re the Bailout are running 200 to 1 against miss the major point: That 1 person may have written a $100,000 donation a month ago –while the 200 plebians didn’t donate shit.
e) There is still need to raise money for campaigning — and I believe defeated Members of Congress get to keep whatever is left in their war chest after the election.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:24 am
In fairness, Nate / Poblano pointed out that you could quite confidently predict the “no” votes by who was running for re-election in a competitive district.
The Republicans had more of those. So the hard part was convincing people actually electorally vulnerable to do something that might have resulted in their loss. Hard to do.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:29 am
Re El Cid’s comment “You gotta love David Brooks”
———-
No you don’t. In a perfect world, David Brooks would get his sissy ass whipped by a bunch of construction workers. He has a megaphone but contributes nothing to the national debate –certainly not any worthwhile facts or information.
David Brooks and George Will are irritating because they are contemptible, butt-kissing whores who presume to make lofty moral pronouncements against fellow whores.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Oh, Jesus Fucking Christ, Don Williams, I didn’t god damn mean you actually had to LOVE David Brooks. I found it amusing, because he’s having to eat Republican shit. Try not playing the only serious leftist revolutionary on the block sometime.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Re David Brook’s comment “It has been interesting to watch them on their single-minded mission to destroy the Republican Party. ”
———-
Shorter Brooks: I wanna live in a GENTEEL whorehouse.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Sorry , El Cid. I wasn’t criticizing you –but I really dislike Republican pundits like David Brooks and George Will. Some Republicans you can write off as simply deluded. Others, like Rush Limbaugh, merely have, IMO, the mentality of common criminals. But Brooks is intelligent enough to know what he is doing.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:04 am
El Cid:
Thanks for the links
September 30th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Don, the real market wasn’t off 7% yesterday — it was off 9%. It’s off 14% for the month. But that’s okay — it’s only workers’ retirement money we’re talking about. It was worth sacrificing that on the altar of your populist outrage.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Re K. Williams
Relative to Mr. Don Williams, as the blogs resident Bolshevik, he has to hold up his end.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Re K Williams’ comment “But that’s okay — it’s only workers’ retirement money we’re talking about.”
—————
In my opinion, this is typical Republican deceit.
The Workers only own a small fraction of the national wealth — much of it is owned by a small fraction of the population.
Second, I didn’t remember you squalling when George W Bush stole $3+ TRILLION of workers retirement money out of Social Security/Medicare to pay for his tax cut for the Superrich and his grab of Iraqi oil reservoirs.
Three, how do you think George is going to pay for this little $2 Trillion Bailout?
Bottom Line: You want to pay the same dishonest accounting game that George W played in 2001. When he stole $3 Trillion from the workers and then conned them into thinking he was doing them a favor by giving them $600 tax refund.
Today, you are pointing to a workers $2000 loss in his 401K –and saying that’s reason for him to accept your $31,000 in gambling losses. Whereas the real solution is to TAX you up the wazoo to cover any costs of fixing this Republican trainwreck.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:20 am
I actually side somewhat with Mr. Williams on Bobo Brooks, but:
is a great line. Which I will appropriate, and fail to acknowledge the source. That’ll show him.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Let’s look at the FACTS. I know Republicans don’t like to do that — it makes their deceit so much more transparent.
1) A UN Study of wealth distribution in different countries notes that the bottom 90 percent of the US population only owns 30 percent of the national wealth.
The top 10 percent own 70 percent, the top 5 percent 58 percent and the top 1 percent owns 33 percent of the national wealth.
Ref: Table 1 of
http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/discussion-papers/2008/en_GB/dp2008-03/
2) So why are we stealing $1.5 Trillion of regressive payroll taxes out of Social Security/Medicare Trust funds to protect the 3 percent richest part of the population from the loss of their wealth?
A loss caused by the irresponsibility of that same 3 percent. Do any of you think Wall Street works for Joe Sixpack, the blue collar construction worker?
Yet it is Joe Sixpack who is being screwed by this deal –because HE is the one who pays most of the payroll taxes.
3) Yet K Williams accuses ME of screwing Joe Sixpack.
In my opinion, the deceit of the Superrich — more accurately, of their low-paid propagandists — knows no bounds.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:51 am
RWB,
You could be right, but judging from the recent RNC ad I also think it is possible the House GOP has just decided to run against the bailout for the remainder of the election. I guess we shall see.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
As I write on Tuesday, the Dow is up 2.7%. It seems to me if it goes up any more or doesn’t fall back any more by Thursday, then the bill doesn’t pass. What happens then is anybody’s guess.
It would be passing strange to have a vote dependent on a few hours fluctuation in the Dow, but isn’t that the way this thing is likely to play out?
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