Sorry, folks, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a bad deal or no deal at all. Here’s why:
The Republicans who voted down yesterday’s bill did so in large part because they disliked the few things we liked about it: Namely, some oversight, tax and punishment provisions. They would rather we were all eating each other in rags than see a rich person pay a cent more in tax. Period.
The Dems can pass a really good bill, but they won’t get anywhere near enough Republicans onboard to make it veto-proof — and as he’s already demonstrated, Bush will veto anything he doesn’t like. In order to get something he won’t veto, Dems will have to let Republicans turn it back into the original Paulson plan — or something even worse.
That’s why yesterday was very likely our last best shot at a halfway-decent bill. We may very well be better off without one now — though there is something to be said for making Bush veto a good bill after he’d spent all this time haranguing people to give him a bill. (Besides, as Ian’s mentioned, the Fed’s gone ahead and printed up a whole bunch of extra money anyway, which comes to about the same thing.)
Related posts:
- Republican Governor of Connecticut Says She’ll Veto Death Penalty Ban
- The PhRMA 7: Will PhRMA Letter Signatories Confirm Commitment to Public Option?
- Obama and Gang of Eight Veto Threat: “Fundamental Compact,” My Ass
- Blue Dog Letter to Waxman Wants PhRMA Deal to Replace Chairman’s Language in Health Bill
- Baucus Health Care Bill: In a Word, Awful
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I’m suspicious of any bill originating from GWB43 and his minions in the first place.
The Paulson conference call needs more publicity….
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com…..ction.html
i don’t think that was a halfway-decent bill.
i think it sucked.
So make him veto it – “it is time for the Republicans to own their failure.”
I don’t think the Senate will pass anything tomorrow.
I think it would be fun to have the House & Senate doing their own bills and voting them down right up to the election! What entertainment we’d get while everything is tanking around us.
I’m absloutly positive they will pass somthing. Probably not a bill….
Hopefully the kidney stones will remain to give them a painful reminder…
Make. Him. Veto.
If they were smart, they would write the following words on a piece of paper:
“Support a bailout”
“Don’t support a bailout”
Then count them. Depending on what they decide, then they write up something comprehensive.
LOL
Then I vote for No Bill.
But the Dems should still push a replacement bill with oversight and fix to the regulatory problems and help for the homeowners and force the Rs to go on record as opposing it. Force them to show their true colors all the way to November and beyond.
BS.. dems should put a good bill and get their people to pass it without pukes and let Bush veto it.
Bush will not veto anything that has loads of money going to Wall Street and other whores.
Is this the first ever $700 Billion bill?
We should all be celebrating as we join the third world.
More billionares and millionaires.
Rockefeller will give us bums a dime. Ain’t it great to be ruled by demorats! Thank you jesus. Thank Nancy Ratfink.
Same with the war funding bills. They should have said, here it is with timelines, veto it and we’ll start bringing the troops home right now. Everytime the Dems have possession of the ball in scoring position, they turn and run in the opposite direction.
The thing really concerns me is that Paulson isn’t going to feel bound by the oversight, and we don’t have any way to make him get the warrants that justify the equity portion of the bailout. The equity portion is the difference between the fair value of the toxic waste we buy and the amount we pay.
He was bitterly opposed to that part of the bill, and won’t do it. It was the only change that really would have made a difference.
This “The Republicans who voted down yesterday’s bill did so in large part because they disliked the few things we liked about it” is sheer politicking (which is ok but let’s be clear about it). The FACT is that there ARE effective ways to deal with the ‘credit crunch’ and some influential Republican’s -and several Dem’s as well- are aware of those ways.
Bottomline is the bill came from the Bush Admin and instead of standing up to a failed administration and saying ‘ok, we understand the necessity of dealing with this crisis and we will propose legislation to do that” they chose to ‘make a deal with the devil’.
And bluntly speaking -having read the full 110 pages of it- there was NOTHING in it that ‘changed the game’. What are the “few things we liked” you are referencing?
I left Mitch McConnell’s and John McCain’s email/numbers on the previous thread for anyone to give them some love. Hey, it would piss off Nancy!
More to the point — The Paulson Proposal is a naked invitation to continue abrogating the US Constitution, and not fit even for a starting point.
Better the Dems come up w/ Something Completely Different (e.g. the Progressive Caucus proposal debuted this afternoon), something that will have red & blue legislators’ phones ringing like the “50/50″ response to attempt#1, but this time exhorting
a) Dems to close ranks around Nancy (who BETTER get behind it!) and
b) GOPpers to note the change of wind and trim sails accordingly.
c) All the above, DO SOMETHING!
In short, get some new legislation on Mr Bush’s desk, and dare him to veto it as the market indexes continue to slide.
No bill is better than any bill that can be passed. The rethugs love the free market, let them have it. And hope that when Obama is elected he will rise to the office and see that a bailout of the people who caused this mess is not the answer for the people of the US.
Japonify USA economy for 30 years so rich rats on wall street can gamble some more.
That’s change you can believe in.
Absolutely.
Let the Deciderator veto said bill as many times as he wishes.
But Sander, the Political Class has determined that they are better off hanging out with the Ruling Class. The only interest most of ‘them’ have in little ole ‘us’ is to pimp ‘programs’ and ‘legislation’ they have NO INTENTION of truly supporting, so that we will send ‘em money and vote for ‘em.
What was it Menken said about poliicians and the intelligence of the American voter?
When you couple that to an attention span that must be at least three centimeters across, well …
But, wouldn’t it be nice to watch the filthy rich and their lap dogs sweat and squirm a bit?
“No war, but class-war!!!”
The dems should pass the most Demolicious bill ever dreamed of.
10 percent income tax surcharge on all income over 500K.
25 cent transaction fee on every — every — stock transaction.
Reinstatement of regulatory schemes stripped away in the last 8 years (at least)
Massive hiring of federal regulators to implement said regulation
Provisions to rewrite/cram down all bad mortgages with federal government taking 50 percent participation in future appreciation of said cramaloans.
$150 billion to Paulson to spend at his discretion.
Take it or don’t take it.
We can always wait for the next prez.
dugg
Mr Paulson, being part of the problem to date, should become part of the solution by resigning immediately.
Before the Bill comes back to the House, Dems should reload it with all the things they stripped out to compromise with the Pigs: mortgage adjustments by bankruptcy judges, more oversight, less compensation for management of failed companies. Make it a People’s bill instead of a Banker’s bill.
Let the Dems round up enough votes to pass it and expect the Bush veto, or let the Pigs kill it.
Then, when the markets tank again and everybody’s retirement plan looks like it’s lost, hit the airwaves with ads about how the Pigs are killing the regular folks.
Keep it up until the election is over.
Elections can be wonderful things.
What she said
I am going to sleep…
I would be willing to pay Paulson a reasonable sum to leave town.
$50 – no more
I would be willing to pay Paulson a reasonable sum to leave town.
plane fare?
one way.
coach.
…and I’ll pony up
Dynamite ideas…
No war but class war. Now.
We can start with little things cuz changing lifestyle and habits is rough. Pay off credit cards and buy nothing on credit in the meantime. If young enough put money in savings bonds rather than in pension plans. Withdraw from the corporate money system. Buy only from mom and pops if possible. Start a neighborhood garden. Turn your neighborhood into an extended family. Lots of little things done by a lot of people can make a difference.
Sleep deep Sandman
Where’s rwcole?
I totally agree. Fill it with so much regulation it will force John McCain to wear an astronaut diaper just to vote in favor of it! ;-)
Love it. You’re another old DFH, right?
That’s a good start. Followed by the next Congress legislating Wall Street into a shadow of its former evil self. Tax the hell out of any capital gain for shares not held for a minimum of 5 years. Make speculation on the market too expensive a habit. Use capital gains taxes to finance the reindustrialization of our country. Just for starters.
Yep. So far to the left I scare Trotsky.
Me, too. Loved SDS.
Dugg IT!
Congressman Keith Ellison was on local AirAmerica for a couple hours. While a foul bill, he felt that some action was immediately required to save pensions, payrolls, &/or 401k’s. He’s a really decent representative who has earned much respect in MN so I’m conflicted about his vote on this.
Yet I hear and read that many economists think the bill is more a payout to Bush cronies than necessary.
If this is so, let’s make an offer Bush can’t refuse with an impeachment in the small print?
The “compromise” bill is the Paulson plan. I just published a diary on Oxdown if you wish to see more.
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/338
I was at an International Peace rally Sept.21 with some of our outspoken youngbloods. Their chant was Class war-stop the rich. So many peace people cringed and dissed them for angry outbursts during a “peace” rally. I had to keep saying to these older people… this is their time, it’s not our time. This is their young adulthood, we had ours.
It’s time for us older folks to get as comfortable with civil disobedience as we were in our youth. And time for those in-betweeners to recognize that no changes ever occurred WITHOUT civil dissent.
The right-wing of the Republicans don’t like this bill and neither does the left-wing of the Democrats, and the two of them are talking some of the same talk:
– Replace mark-to-market accounting with something that is longer-term.
– Increase the FDIC protection limits.
And, the liberal dems’ No Bailout Act has three additional provisions
– “Require the Securities and Exchange Commission to restricting naked short sells permanently.” (Already implemented on an ad hoc basis.)
– “Require the Securities and Exchange Commission to restore the up-tick rule permanently.” (Not controversial.)
– The FDIC should determine banks with short-term capital needs and the ability to financially recover in the foreseeable future, and help them out by buying equity in them. (This is what Sweden and Finland did, and what most serious economists recommend.)
If you have not read the letter Dennis K. sent to Pelosi today, you might want to read it…
http://kucinich.house.gov/News…..tID=104160
It might be worth giving this letter a post and diggs…
I think there are decent honest people who sincerely believe that this bill is necessary. I don’t want it but I am not going to tar and feather everyone who does. They may know a whole lot more than I do. I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
I see no reason why Congress couldn’t craft a bill specifically covering pension plans and the like. Would hopefully cost much less and would put the money where it would really do some good. Force the banks to renegotiate any viable loan to latest assessment and fixed rate only. It’s past time to tell the banking community, and Wall Street, they no longer call the shots. We do.
Let me get this straight.
Aside from massacring possibly a million Iracis there really isn’t anything to show for the Irac fiasco other than an unfinished embassy.No infastructure.Next to no results from all the no bid contracts{some bases).Billions unaccounted for.Profits soared for all the defense contractors.Lucrative private intel agency contracts.The oil contracts{if any} profits will go to Cheney and his cronies.The judicial system is in shambles.We’ve lost nearly all our civil liberties and what about all the things we don’t even know yet.NOW they want every US citizen to loan them $3000.00
Unfortunately yes, but it was about the best you could do with such a pig in a couple of days. Add some lipstick, but people recognized it was still a pile of crap with a marshmallow on top!
As an ‘oldie’ I’m VERY confortable with younger people doing ‘civil disobedience ESPECIALLY since they have so many laws penalizing them for doing such that my generation didn’t have to face. KUDOS big time to them !!!
The Brits are really freaking out over this. A banker threw himself in front of an express train yesterday:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..30374.html
Rep. Dennis Kucinich
There was nothing at all good in your view? Then you and Paul Krugman must not like each other. ;-)
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is freaking out over what’s happening here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..30374.html
oh let him veto!
hi PW. evening pups.
I’ll be going back out Sat night. It’s refreshing to be surrounded by folks much younger than myself and to feel that energy and be a part of it. Some of those of whom you speak have retained the spirit but lost the fire. They don’t know what they’re missing.
THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY SOUNDS LIKE MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!
To add to this thought, Al Gore called for civil dissent by young people to oppose “clean coal”. I must admit I thought “Fuck you!!! Why don’t YOU lead the dissent???? You can afford the lawyers, you can afford the ramifications.” Chicken shit politics in my opinion, asking those with their futures ahead of them to do your dirty work!
That is truly horrible. Who said money makes life better?
Let me get this straight.……
you left out that the Iraki people should be good a goddamned grateful for all we’ve done “for” them.
The letter Kucinich links to, written by Frank Alexander, JD and Professor from Emory University, should be used as the foundational structure for a bill.
Both Dennis’ letter and Alexander’s letter need LOTS of press across the netroots…
Dennis got a good airing of this on Maddow tonight.
Kucinich on rachel maddow replay….Sigh, he is so freakin awesome
It’s up to us. Utah Phillips tells a great story about Miles Horton and his take on being a leader.
bom dia pups (forgot my manners)
Absolutely. We should support these young idealists.
I’ll be going back out Sat night.
Can you imagine going door to door for McLame? You couldn’t do it without both a calendar and a wrist-watch.
Q – “What’s the Senator’s position on “X”?
A – “Well, as of this morning at 8:30….”
I’ve known some really wealthy people and never knew one to be happy or content. Driven by the need to have more. Many on more medication per week than I’d like to think about. Not the way I want to live.
Business Week lists the towns in the US most likely to be hit by the credit crisis:
Then we need to continue the airing of it and Alexander’s letter.
neither I.
Define “to show”, Cheney is still beaming Mission Accomplished. So is Eric Prince. It’s all good for all the sick bastards.
We just had these weird ideas of honor and patriotism. So last century!!!
no major poll has had shrub with a JAR above the mid 20’s for weeks now. even Fox has him at 26% and one national poll has 54% in their Strongly Dislike category. with these numbers even his own party won’t follow instructions. at this point, we’re in uncovered territory in terms of the congressional politics of this bailout. I say let’s plow forward and put up a good democratic bill, but goodness knows what’s going to happen.
I still think the only appropriate thing for shrub to do is to resign immediately for his total failur to lead or rally the country over this emergency.
Seriously, the rest of the world can bite on this. They could do the underlying math on this as well as anyone. They should have known the paper made no sense (some of us here were saying this 3 years ago) yet they were perfectly willing to buy it anyway because the short term returns looked good, as they always do on the upside of a bubble. Now the bubble has burst and these guys are sniffing about how we can’t keep our financial house in order. Well if they were half as smart as they are now pretending to be they would never have got caught the way they were, and with the bailouts going on in Britain and Europe at the moment their economic house is looking pretty glassy as well from here.
More like:
“Who are you supporting for president?”
“McCain”
“Oh, well, I’ll wait here while you go find your brain and then we’ll talk.”
(sigh) But I’ll be at the floundering former jewel of the Sembler empire in St Pete trying to convince those with more credit cards than sense that we’re going in the wrong direction in every endeavour.
only if cheney resigns along with him. no fucking way I want him in charge of this country for 1 nanosecond, let alone 4 months
I know Krugman’s take and he is correct that the U.S. has become a ‘banana republic with nukes’ BUT the bill was/is bad and Paul accepted that legislation couldn’t be proposed that would address the situation in a manner that did not trash the taxpayer.
Just one example(well, two):
There are no limits on executive salaries(despite Feinstein’s ’set them in a boat and set it on fire) and section: “(e) PREVENTING UNJUST ENRICHMENT.—This subsection does not apply to troubled assets acquired in a merger or acquisition, or a purchase of assets from a financial institution in conservatorship or receivership, or that has initiated bankruptcy proceedings under title 11, United States Code.” , which exempts JPMorgan, BofA, Citi, Goldman, and Barclay’s from ‘unjust enrichment’”.
The ‘good parts’ were strictly ‘window dressing’ -such as the ‘golden parachutes’ part- meant to mollify an objecting public. The bill is just a mechanism to ‘keep on keeping on’ of the modus operandi that got us into this mess to begin with.
If “the rest of the world” as you say was composed of only greedy fuckers, you might have a point.
stryder, openhope
Seriously, Bush and Ceney must be impeached tomorrow. They have a full 3 1/2 months to burn down the White House. I mean what’s left that they haven’t run into the ground?
What can we do?
This is nonsense.
So he vetoes it. This crisis is a political crisis – not a so-called financial crisis at this point. Come up with a new bill in 40 days after a new President is elected.
This is an attempt to make weak-knee Dems and people like Phoenix Woman to capitulate. Nothing more.
Time to climb into my tree.
Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.
Namaste
boa noite SD
peaceful dreams
You don’t read here much, right?
Well, welcome.
g’night
I was thinking of political and financial leaders principally so your characterization is valid.
Charlie Rose is disgusting right now.
All I can say, “If you are explaining, you’re losing.”
Sen. Judd Greg will not even admit the assets are bad and that the bill did not address foreclosure.
Finally, he states the lack of regulation caused this mess…
ian upstairs
What’s left? Uhmmm, the Treasury?? Color me cynical on the bailout.
You use ‘they’ several times in your comment. When our ‘greedy fuckers’ went down, so did our economy and what sprang from it.
Assuming it will not happen in ‘other places,’ and the ‘they’s’ over there will not suffer for it isn’t realistic.
In the run up to the war I actually thought Charlie Rose was interested in finding out the real story. I was so stupid! Stayed up late just to watch him. Same with Jon Burns-Iraq reporter for the NYT.
What a fool am I.
PW that you for the post. I am heading to bed soon.
good night firepups.
Thanks, I Love the Lake.
As I pointed out above the “compromise” bill is the Paulson plan. So PW is mistaken. Democrats are not facing the imposition of that plan. They have already signed off on it.
It is important to remember that the Administration had the Paulson plan for months and only sprang it (as they always do with controversial pieces of legislation) shortly before an adjournment. The housing bubble burst officially more than a year ago on August 9, 2007 with the freezing of activity in the BNP Paribas funds although mortgage lenders had been under considerable strain throughout 2006. So if the Administration had wanted to act in a timely fashion it certainly had the opportunity to do so.
Now as always faced with artificial time constraints the Democrats caved. They accepted without question as PW has that it must be the Paulson plan or no plan. This is only true because they were and are completely unwilling (except for a few like Kucinich) to look at any alternatives. Things do not have to go down this way but they will because the Democrats simply refuse to show leadership or take a stand on anything. Some Democrats did stand against this bill but it was Republican opposition (not Democratic) that defeated the bill the first time around.
It’s one thing to throw opinions around here but if we could all possibly get together on a plan and try to organize,the feds would be on us in a heart beat.
I’m convinced that the first world trade center bombing was a test run to see the effects it would have on things.These people realized the potential of terrorism as a weapon a long time ago.911 was the implementation of the plan and now you’re seeing the final stages of the coup.
Yes – make him veto it. Make the Senate filibuster. What is wrong with the Dems? I can only believe that they are complicit in all of it – from Iraq to FISA to SCHIP to this. We have no allies in power on the Hill.
I don’t understand your comment. The Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel has spoken out in favor of the bailout. Deutsche Bank is one of the big holders of bad paper. Most of the British commentators on BBC have come out in favor of the bailout. I wonder why you think that bankers around the world somehow were exempt from doing the same math that a lot of us did a long time ago.
Add single-payer health care. We deserve it, we can’t afford it, and we are citizens, not serfs.
I don’t give a damn if people jump off roofs because their stocks went down. We are a whole country of people who can’t afford to see a doctor! Children die because of abscessed teeth, adults because they can’t afford their diabetic testing supplies or simple doctor visits or medicine.
What is going on here? We are even allowing any bill to see daylight without huge taxes for the rich and provisions for we the people who will bail the rich out: Health Care, bankruptcy reform, housing.
Give it to me. Jesus I swear, people take better care of livestock.
In spite of greedy fuckers everywhere, reducing the other nations caught up in this to abstractions is faulty. There are families in trouble over here and over there. Families sleeping in their cars in mall parking lots here and pretty soon there, too, if not already. People who walked into banks to borrow to buy homes, not clued-in to the world’s circumstances.
There is no good deal to be had, and it will end badly. The only thing left to do is end it quickly…
…was the point of the piece, I think.
I am not in total agreement with it, but, like all the shit we have spread around the globe recently, we own it.
Agree. Let the thing go down.. and we’ll just have to wait 5 weeks while screaming ourselves hoarse as to whose to blame. We’ll have to go that way anyway, as what they want will likely just make things worse.
I should rephrase my last sentence @ 48
“NOW they want every US citizen to loan them $3000.00″
It’s more like GIVE me $3000 each{which we will never pay back} or we will see to it that the economy crumbles and you won’t have a fucking dime.All we have to do is stop the banks from lending.We’re gonna get your ssi next and if you organize against us we can have you arrested for just looking the way you do.We’ll introduce you to what terrorism is all about.We own congress and the judicial system so don’t even think of pressuring them for investigations.
Give it up!!