And What About Those 95 Democrats?

The way to fix this:
1) Cut capital gains tax to nearly zero
2) Cut corporate tax to nearly zero
3) eliminate any tax on "repatriation" of U.S. dollars into US banks from off shore.
4) watch the money flow and the economy boom

All this "bailout" BS is just pissing in the wind.

the meme is that the stock market lost a "trillion dollars" the day after because the bailout failed to go thru yet a "rescue plan" of 700 billion dollars was supposed to make a difference..
now listen carefully ..no bailout of only $700 billion CAUSED a TRILLION dollar loss in A SINGLE DAY ..how does that even begin to make sense..

It is an established fact that liberal democrats several community organizations were behind the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac policies. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd et. all... along the likes of ACORN... are all completely 100% responsible for the mortgage meltdown. There is can be no dispute about this among thinking people who look at the evidence fairly.

do you people just like to hear the sound of your voice? Most of us have a horse in this race-a 401 K, a pension plan or something that ties us to the market-go ahead and shoot yourself in the other foot so you can be completely crippled-WE lost over a trillion dollars in the stock market yesterday-As much as I hate to bail anyone else out-we are also bailing ourselves out you numb nuts-you and you and you --can be the next in line to lose your job-businesses are falling like rocks daily-this thing is just getting more disaserous every day-while these idiots posture all over washington-Get it DONE!!!

--But considering that only a dozen votes needed to switch in order to provide a different outcome, and 95 Democrats in the House voted against it, critics are now wondering why couldn't House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have assured a different outcome considering how important she said its passage was?--

Are you serious? This isn't even a question and here is why...

The entire point of the “bipartisan” bill was so that the Republicans couldn’t turn around and use it against the Democrats after the fact. All of them know how unpopular (to put it politely) this bill was on ‘Main Street’ (which I’m already sick of as a euphemism) and that anyone who voted for it was probably going to suffer some, uh - ’strongly worded’ backlash from their constituents. The only way to get the bill passed and not have all over their faces was for the Demos to force the Repubs to sign on beforehand. Each was supposed to ’supply’ a majority YEA vote so that the pain of doing so would be evenly spread on both sides of the aisle.
The Democrats came through. The Republicans didn’t. It’s that simple.
Understand, I’m making no statement on whether the bill should have been passed or not. Nor am I giving Nancy “Listen to me Preen” Pelosi any slack on being an idiot. But, for Republicans to point at THAT as a reason to vote down a bill that was so “critically needed” is ridiculous on its face. The real reason is that there are too many Republicans who are holding onto their seats by their fingernails and they’ve got their own elections coming up back home.

Jon, re: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lowering their standards. Isn't that exactly what conservatives wanted to accomplish by loosening/eliminating regulations?

Again, it was great when everybody was making money on mortgage-backed securities, and homeowners could refinance over and over again because the price of their home was going up 5% (or more) every year.

Also, I don't have any objection to raising the FDIC limit. It just seems a little bit like the 'proper tire pressure will lower gas prices' argument. It won't hurt, but if the problem is a crunch in the credit market, more insurance on deposit accounts is not a solution.

"You won't believe where that $700-billion bailout figure came from" (LA Times):

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

With some banks failing and others being bought up it should be obvious that we are in a period of consolidation in the financial industry. This can create a lot of uncertainty with depositors...my mother is a perfect example. She is 73 and widowed living on SS and the interest on a few 100k CD's in different banks. If one bank is bought up by another and she has a CD in both she is no longer protected fully.
Raising the limit is one way of adding some confidence and may stem sum large depositers from making large withdrawals making our banking problem worse. Once again, Will, and other Liberal Democrats who think like him haven't a clue.

Will...what you fail to acknowledge is Fannie Mae Freddy Mac were taking "the risk out of the market" by lowering their standards on what loans they would buy. Liberal Democrats do not understand how markets work. They should stay out of economic policy altogether, their every attempt at imposing "fairness" backfires every time.

Raising the FDIC limit is a red herring. It will only affect people who have more than $100,000 on deposit in a single FDIC institution. If you have over $100,000 on deposit (probably less than 1% of the population) and you're dumb enough to put all of it in the same account (probably less than 0.1% of that 1%), you might be talking about 3 out of 300,000,000 Americans that raising the FDIC limit would affect.

Is this what passes for 'governing' these days? I'm genuinely afraid that we'll get the government we deserve.

I am proud of my congressman, in fact if he had voted for the original bill he would not be getting my vote. While the bill yesterday has some improvements ---
ACORN and folks like BARACK OBAMA not being rewarded for the attempt to steal more taxpayer funds. And Harry Reid's sneaking a ban on shale into the bill. An Nancy Pelosi trying to PORK it up even further. The fact remains that it is a bad bill and bravo to the congress folks on both sides for not voting for it.

Does something need to be done? YES!!
FIX THE PROBLEMS! There have been great suggestions, most ignored, before yesterday's vote. Raise the insurance limit (I know Obama and McCain are taking credit for that but it was the Republicans in the house that had the suggestions) and the 3 month rolling average....great ideas that were not even considered!

When I look at the history of this scandal. Barney Frank, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and any/everybody that refused to take action to STOP the problem in spite of warnings.

People need to call a spade a spade and prosecute the people that have attempted to destroy the economy with their criminal actions and that includes people that lied on their loan applications (BANK FRAUD) and those that made millions and millions with their scam.

We better start seeing these criminals in handcuffs, forced to repay the taxpayers and be prosecuted.

C'mon, Eyedoc. You're making everyone who reads this page dumber. please note that neither Fannie Mae nor Freddie Mac originate loans. Further, most (probably closer to all, but I don't have the numbers handy) of sub-prime mortgages sold in the last 10 years were sold by institutions who are not subject to the CRA.

The bottom line is mortgage-backed securities were big money-makers, and you can't sell mortgage-backed securities if you don't have mortgages to bundle together. This is a case of pure, unfettered, short-term driven capitalism collapsing in on itself. Which was brought on by a) real estate prices leveling off, then falling, b) a decrease in disposable income, in part because of c) an increase in inflation, and d) an increase in unemployment.

The sudden "crisis" actually started in 2005. But now that its affecting the banks and brokerages who have been whistling merrily on their way to their doom for the past 3 years, the federal government (a wholly owned subsidiary of those banks and brokerages) is trying to hustle their way out.

This bailout bill is akin to giving the arsonists that started the fire, 700 billion gallons of petrol to extinguish said fire.

Giving ACORN " bailout profits" yet to be realized makes my point.

I praise every member of Congress that voted against this bailout.

Again, I repeat - What passes for political leadership in this country is a damn disgrace.

The cause of these problems is that the government, via the Community Reinvestment Act, enouraged Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac etc. to make loans to people who couldn't afford to pay them back, particularly poor minorities. The goal was to increase home ownership, but it obviously doesn't do anybody a favor to have banks lending out money to people who can't pay the mortgage.

This is not a failure of the free markets. This is a failure of the government. And, as far as I can see, there's nothing in the Paulson plan that will alleviate the problem. If Congress comes up with another bad plan, it will be voted down again. Most Americans are against the plan so there's a definite disadvantage to anyone in congress who's voting for it.

This isn't that complicated. The Dems got exactly the number of votes they wanted. If at least 0.5 of the House Republicans had voted for the bill, that would have neutralized the issue. The Republicans wanted the bill to pass, but they wanted to be able to hang the whole thing on Bush/Pelosi/Reid/Paulson/Obama.

I realize some people deeply disagree with Pelosi, but it looks to me like she played this perfectly.

@ george,

that's right...obama SHOULD have done more even his own people, jesse jackson jr., who works in his campaign voted no!

with that said, mccain had NOBODY from arizona supporting this bill, and whut's so said is that mccain was under MORE pressure than obama in trying to get people together to get this bill passed as proof of his "leadership" and even his campaign yesterday was claiming "victory" for reaching an agreement before it got rejected...then flipped flopped stating he NEVER wanted this bill passed while in the meantime mccain all this morning is stating the exact opposite.

sometimes keeping your distance is a GOOD thing....this is something the house of representatives have to no without any outside interference

"So, obviously it's not really an emergency."
-----
If a million people ALREADY living in the streets -- and millions and millions and millions unable to "access", as the politicians say, such silly fripperies as adequate nutrition, housing, or medical care -- what's the "emergency"??

Forcing election of the mob-friendly Obama seems to be the "emergency" -- otherwise, why is it the supposedly-"Democratic" leadership that it's in bed with the neo-con White House, and the Republicans who ... aren't?

"... the Titanic continues to steam toward disaster?"
-----
Nonono: the iceberg is in the rear-view mirror, those in steerage are underwater, and most of those in the government will be whisked away by helicopter just before the final whoosh.

You want "the best idea out there to go along with"? Presumably you're talking about ideas from politicians. Go find John Edwards. Or Ralph Nader. Or Jesse Jackson. Or Barbara Lee.

The Republicans didn't write the bill. Paulson did. It was a crappy bill, and most of the Republicans voted against it.

Why couldn't Pelosi get enough Democratic votes? Because the bill stinks on ice and most Americans are opposed to it. Anyone who votes for it is going to pay a price. That, and obviously her own party doesn't have much respect for her as Speaker (which is certainly understandable).

What's funny is that congress says it's a n emergency to get this bill passed, but then they don't pass it. And, then they they say they're going to take the next few days off and not reconvene until Thursday. So, obviously it's not really an emergency. Since everyone pretty much agrees the plan stinks, why vote for it at all? Let the Treasury inject money into the financial system like they've been doing(and did again today) and forget the bill altogether.

Is this arguing about who is to blame for setting the ship's course while the Titanic continues to steam toward disaster? If the politicans are currently so engaged, do we citizens and voters have to be? Is yesterday's news more important now than tomorrow's solution? What is the best idea out there to go along with, like it or not?