Monday, September 29, 2008

The House Bails on the Bailout



The House of Representatives voted 228-205 today against the massive $700 billion economic bailout (or "buy-in" if you choose Rep. Pelosi's preferred nomenclature). Below are a few gut reactions:

(1) Hank Paulson won't get his chance to do the Scrooge McDuck backstroke in a room piled 8 feet deep with dollar bills (which, by the terms of the failed bill, he literally might have been able to pull off without congressional, judicial, administrative, executive, or any other type of oversight);

(2) The stock market fell 700 points, signifying what I've been thinking all along: these companies aren't really worth what we thought they were when that flashing number on TV kept going up and we kept buying stock based only on the flashing numbers instead, oh say, SEC filings and the like;

(3) According to minority leader John Boehner, he couldn't muster the Republican support for the bill because Nanci Pelosi hurt their feelings before the vote (if that is really true, I'm jumping off a bridge);

(4) We are still a semi-capitalist society (high five to the Invisible Hand);

(5) Giant corporations still can't borrow millions of dollars in day-to-day loans to pay for their operating costs;

(6) Giant corporations have to borrow millions of dollars in day-to-day loans to pay for their operating costs?;

(7) My power is still on, and I get cable TV and the internet, food supplies are steady, I own a shotgun, two serviceable fishing poles and a whole bunch of camping equipment, and there are no riots in the streets. All-in-all, not a bad day.

Ok, so on a more serious note, I'll explain why I don't support the $700 billion bailout (other than the 700 billion reasons I just gave, or, for my part, my $2,000 piece of it). Ever since September 12, 2001, the Bush administration has been pushing legislation down our throats via a weak, ineffectual and compliant Congress (both Republican and Democrat) in the name of perpetual crisis. September 11 was a crisis and it demanded swift action (which we never took). The Bush administration has found a great source of power in perceived crisis and has used that perception to demolish the traditional role of the executive branch in our government and the role of the government in our lives. Their latest escapade has been to push a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation down Congress' throat in the name of yet another in a long string of "crises." Bravo to the lawmakers who finally stood up (what took you so long?).

It is true that our economy is in bad shape. It is true that there are several fundamental economic problems that need to be solved and, if the markets are left alone to work themselves out, things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better. However, what we don't need is another 11th hour bill, rushed through Congress and signed by Bush's golden pen (subject, of course, to his signing statement) that ends up becoming yet another piece of regrettable crisis legislation.

Absurd Quote of the Day that Brought Me Out of Hiatus

You can hear the panicked screams emanating from Capitol Hill all the way down here in South Carolina. Lawmakers are suddenly faced with a very tough decision- how are we going to spend this $700 billion crisis money? Turns out that the bailout is deeply unpopular among the public, but hey what do we know?

This brings us to our absurd quote of the day that brought me out of hiatus. This gem comes from Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), who hails from the conservative 8th District of Georgia- the fightin' 8th. To set up the irony of this quote, I need only cite to Rep. Marshall's own website, the title of which claims: "Jim Marshall: Representing the People of Georgia's 8th District". Source. Seriously, check the link, its in the title, in big, bold letters. So imagine my surprise when I'm reading through the WaPo's coverage (Source) of the bailout this morning and I see Rep. Marshall saying this:
I am willing to give up my seat over this.
That's right, REPRESENTATIVE Marshall is willing to give up his seat to pass an incredibly unrepresentative piece of legislation that just happens to vastly extend the power of our federal government and enables our economy to continue down the road of becoming a full fledged Ponzi scheme, all because people (and by "people" I mean people in the Treasury Department and corporate America) got all freaked out because what is the equivalent of a large scale, corporate pay-day lending scheme stopped working. Gotta love it, folks!