Slouching Towards Washington to Be Born
David Weigel | October 3, 2008, 9:24am
The House is
set to vote on the bailout bill today, leaders optimistic that a week of arm-twisting and sky-is-falling commentary have made the job easier.
Black lawmakers said personal calls from Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama helped switch them from "no" to "yes," as Republicans and Democrats alike said appeals from credit-starved small businessmen and the Senate's addition of $110 billion in tax breaks and other sweeteners had persuaded them to drop their opposition.
"I hate it," but "inaction to me is a greater danger to our country than this bill," said GOP Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee, one of the 133 House Republicans who joined 95 Democrats in rejecting the measure Monday, sending the stock market plummeting.
Others said they were agonizing as they decided whether to change course and back the largest government intervention in markets since the Great Depression. "I'm trying desperately to get to 'yes,'" said Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H.
The key to flipping House votes is not anything Obama or McCain have done, or any demands by the Republican Study Committee conservatives who torpedoed the bill last week. I keep hearing about scared constituents calling up their representatives and asking them to do something. The change from 10 to 1 anti-bailout calls and e-mails to 50/50 anti/pro-bailout calls is what's greasing the tracks. The key difference in the Senate roll call and the House roll call: Vulnerable Republicans (there are basically no vulnerable Senate Democrats) voted for the bailout. Those of them concerned about John McCain's campaign also know that he can't really win if any more time is spent talking about the economy.
Chris | October 3, 2008, 2:03pm | #
How is it that Congress, Senate, and the President can pass a bill that allows the using of tax payers money to buy up a bunch of failed mortgages (that was originally the tax payers mortgages) and then take those mortgages and sell them back to the same companies or same type of companies, make a profit, and the tax payers get what? The right to live in this home for another 5 years. and if it fails then America is right back where it is today.
Might I remind the american people on a statement made by George Bush Jr. "Iraq is a threat to america, It has weapons of mass destruction, and saddam hussien harbors terrorists from Al-Qaida and the taliban." 1 year after invading this country we found 0 weapons of mass destruction, 0 terrorists involved with Al-Qaida, and we destroyed a country. This lie from president Bush has cost the american tax payers billions of dollars per month for the past 7 years. George Bush has lied to us before, and he is lieing to us again. It is a political move from the republicans to try and make McCain look like an economic hero. They are hoping that if this bill passes, that McCain will get full credit for it, But if it fails it will all be Obama's fault with the help of the democrats.
Congress, Senate, And the president does not care what the tax payers think. They are going to pass a bill to use our hard earned money and there is nothing we can do to stop this. We will never get to vote on the bill. And they could care less if they get voted out of office. Well at least 1 man cant get voted back in regardless of the action of the bill. We should treat President Bush the same way he treated the american people when they were getting forclosed upon and ordered to move out. After all he is a lame duck.
If we vote the ones that pass the bill out of office they still collect a paycheck. So what do they have to lose? The way to fix this problem is to first gather the ones responsible for all of this up and charge them with the crime of fraud. They made a deal sound good to the tax payer and at the same time they were laughing behind their backs. I say bring back squaters rights, tell the people that lost their homes to move back into those homes and let the mortgage brokers and wall street take it the same way they gave it.
Why leave a home sit and rot while no one lives in it because the banks can't sell them. Stop the bail out, put the people back in those forclosed homes, give the bankers 7 years to try and loan more money to sell the home they want to keep from the ones they swindled out of it. If there is any truth that credit has dried up and a bail-out (rescue) is needed , then the people will have a home for the price of the mental anguish they had to go through during the forclosure and the mental anguish of seeing that moment coming.
My heart goes out to those people for being so proud of finally making that american dream come true, Only to have that dream turn into a nightmare because of greed and fraud of bankers, and mortgage lenders, and then the White house trying to make a profit off the bankers and mortgage lenders deceit, at the price of the same people that were deceived!!
May god bless all of the tax payers.
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