Nine Days Before Voting for Earmark-Laden Financial Rescue Package, McCain Deemed Such Compromises “Unacceptable”
Ali Frick and Wolf Blitzer point out that as recently as September 23, John McCain thought it would be “unacceptable” to add any earmarks to a bailout package:
Of course he voted for just such an “unacceptable” bill yesterday. We see here not only some hypocrisy, but once again the fundamentally impractical nature of McCain’s thinking on these issues. All things considered, rampant earmarking isn’t a good thing and I think we should consider it a considerable weakness of America’s system of weak party discipline and many legislative veto points. But given the need to pass legislation in the institutional set-up we have, if allowing some earmarks is the best way to get an important bill passed, then of course you add the earmarks. Even McCain, in practice, seems to recognize this.
18 Responses to “Nine Days Before Voting for Earmark-Laden Financial Rescue Package, McCain Deemed Such Compromises “Unacceptable””
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October 2nd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
We just don’t get it. A true Maverick votes for something you think is “unacceptable”.
John
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Instead of Matthew chasing his tail over McCain’s habitual –but in the weeds deceit — maybe he could take a look at the larger picture.
If we took ONE TENTH of this $1.5 Trillion Bailout and gave it to low income people as tax credits, they could pay their mortgages, the default rate would drop, and financial service firms would no longer have a problem with mark to market.
Of course, that means they Superrich would have to wait 30 years for their mortgage money to be repaid –as opposed to having Schumer and Barney shove all the chips over to them right now. But why is that a problem?
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
It seems hilarious to be debating chickenshit earmarks — when a fucking Oil Tanker of an $2 T Earmark is sailing past you.
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
McCain says earmarks and pork are dangerous and corrupting. He says as President he would veto all bills with pork and earmarks, whatever the consequences.
And then he votes for a bill full of pork and earmarks. And he doesn’t call for the President to veto it.
Yet he doesn’t change his rhetoric on pork and earmarks, and his promise to stop them.
In the real world, we call that lying.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I think it’s not so much the bribery per se, as what the bribes are (and are not) buying. If the Alaska delegation would sign off on universal health insurance, I’d say let them have two bridges to nowhere.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Re Don Williams
If we took ONE TENTH of this $1.5 Trillion Bailout and gave it to low income people as tax credits, they could pay their mortgages, the default rate would drop, and financial service firms would no longer have a problem with mark to market.
Mr. Williams just doesn’t get it. What we have here in the good old USA is a government of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I’ve no idea what the negotiations on this bill was like behind the scenes, but if Obama set it up so that McCain either had to vote for these earmarks or watch the stock market fall 500 points the moment he voted no, he’s an evil genius.
Half of McCain’s talking points for the domestic policy debate are now compromised.
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Ahem.
So let me see if I have this logic straight:
Given a republican who is against something (in this case earmarks), and that something is added to a bill that is very important (in this case, bailout)
* If he votes against it, he is too dogmatic to lead
* If he votes for it, he is too hypocritical to lead
Same situation, but with a democrat:
* If he votes against it, he is principled and honorable, and therefore a good leader
* If he votes for it, he is willing to compromise in a crisis, and therefore a good leader
Just wanted to make sure I was clear on how things work.
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
jb, I think this is how it works:
* If a republican who has made earmarks the center of his domestic policy and vowed to veto any bill with an earmark in it votes for such a bill, they are demonstrating that their stated position is a load of horse manure.
McCain spent a third of the debate last Friday trying to convince the country that the most important thing in the world was that he would veto any bill with an earmark in it. Now maybe he can shut up about that and we can talk about something that actually matters.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:38 pm
The idea that McCain hasn’t voted for a bill with earmarks during his 26 years in Congress is absurd. The point isn’t so much that it is hypocritical or even contradictory. The point is that if McCain votes for a bill, than ergo, the bill is good. If he votes against it, it is by definition bad. McCain has no positions outside of a fundamental belief in his own righteousness. That may be a useful mental position to have when you are wrongly imprisoned, but it is a fundamentally dangerous one to have when you are an executive.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:57 am
JB, it looks to me like the bailout dirties both candidates.
McCain stopped campaigning to line up GOP congressmen for the vote, he said he’d done it, and he failed. Then he voted for it himself when it was full of earmarks and when the vast majority of republicans were deadset against it (or maybe they changed their minds when the stock market scared them, the polling is very unclear and suspect).
Obama voted to give a whole lot of taxpayer money to a bunch of bankers who’d gambled their own money and lost. He campaigned to give the money to Bush and Bush’s appointee to pass out to the bankers.
If that got the reporting it deserved, the Libertarians wouldn’t be a third party in this election.
October 4th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
It seems to me that someone ought to spend some time coming up with great earmark projects. Earmarks don’t have to be bridges to nowhere. I suspect that bridges to nowhere are just the result of congressmen who lack good ideas about how to spread money around in their home state.
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