Thoughts on the Bailout

The bailout failed...couple thoughts on that...

John Boehner and Roy Blunt voted for it (I trust them), so did Frank and Pelosi (I distrust them). This presents a dilemma...it seems to me that the conservatives that voted for it felt that it was the best they could get given their minority status.

I think Boehner made an error when he blamed the failure on Pelosi's "partisan floor speech" that drove 12 conservative votes (a deciding margin) out of the "for" column. Now the media is attempting to spin this as a Republican-caused problem, not paying any attention at all to the 90 or so Dems that voted against it.

People are blaming an "election year" for the defeat...like that is a bad thing. I made the comment when I heard that the bill was defeated that "representation still exists!" Whether or not the American people are correct in their loathing of this bill, at least their representatives listened to them! This is what the House was designed to do.

I guess the idea behind blaming an election year is that our representatives can't make their decisions based upon their great wisdom if they're up for election. They're pictured as craven because they want to be re-elected. So what? That's why we have elections...if you want to be re-elected, you represent the best interests of your constituency. If you have to vote against your constituency, you better have a darn good reason! And, the fact is, they can't give a darn good reason for this bailout other than the looming depression predicted by the experts. They haven't a clue whether or not it would work...but we do know what it would do to our deficit and federal oversight.

However...why a taxpayer funded bailout? My Senator, Arlen Specter, actually said something today that made sense...he was urging patience and questioning why we were jettisoning all the normal legislative procedures in attempting to pass this bill. Why not take a deliberative approach and consider things a bit? The markets will be fine as long as they see something coming down the road.

My fear now is that the conservatives may have overplayed their hand and the socialists are going to push for federal ownership of even more private companies.

Question: Why is it a bad thing when banks fail and are bought out by other banks? Isn't that the market working?