The blame for this mess falls squarely at the feet of Nancy Pelosi. SHe had the ability to force this turd sandwich through but failed to lead.
Posts Tagged ‘failout’
Megan McArdle: Pelosi’s Big Screw Up
September 30, 2008Megan McArdle at the Atlantic:
Pelosi screwed up royally. She is the Democratic Tom DeLay. Newt Gingrich was an ideologue, but Tom DeLay was simply a partisan, most keenly interested in maximizing his party’s political power. Pelosi cut a deal in which, as far as I can tell, every single Republican in a safe seat had to vote yes so that the Democrats could maximize their no votes. Given that the Republican caucus is pretty much in open revolt, this was beyond moronic. She then spent a week openly and repeatedly blaming the Republicans and the Bush administration for the current crisis. The way she set things up, it was “Heads I win, tails you lose”: vote for the deal and I’ll paint you as heartless reactionaries bailing out your fat cat friends. If you’re going to do that, you’d better make sure you have some goddamn margin for error in your own party. She didn’t. Then she got up and delivered yet another speech blaming the Republicans for the bailout deal she was about to pass.
Great take on this. Pelosi’s battle cry was ridiculous. She will be remembered as one of the worst speakers of the house. She couldn’t pry ten more votes? Did she even try?
Will Pelosi Bailout Number Two Include ACORN?
September 30, 2008A number of Republican House members and staff, along with others who are plugged in, are telling me that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats will come back with a new bill that includes all the left-wing stuff that was scrubbed from the bill that was defeated today in the House.
As this scenario goes, the House Democrats need 218 votes, and they have to pick up a number of black and Hispanic House members who jumped ship because the Wall Street provisions, in their view, were too benign. So things like the bankruptcy judges setting mortgage terms and rates, the ACORN slush-fund spending, the union proxy for corporate boards, stricter limits on executive compensation, and much larger equity ownership of selling banks through warrants will all find itself back in the new bill. Of course, this scenario will lose more Republican votes. But insiders tell me President Bush will take Secretary Paulson’s advice and sign that kind of legislation.
UPDATE: Allahpundit at Hot Air’s take on this
Freddoso Interviews Cantor
September 30, 2008David Freddoso interviews Eric Cantor at National Review:
Barney Frank, Barack Obama, and other Democrats have suggested that this problem resulted from a philosophy of deregulation. Is that explanation fair, or what’s really at the heart of this?
A basic explanation of how we are where we are is the devalued state of the real estate market. We’ve had monetary policies that have allowed free credit to flow. We’ve had oversight regulators that have not done an adequate job in certain instances. But let’s see where we first started going off course. That was during the Carter administration, when Congress began this process of pushing lending institutions into extending credit to uncreditworthy borrowers.
This is the Community Reinvestment Act that you’re talking about?
Yes. And in fact, as the regulations developed, banks would be punished if they couldn’t demonstrate a certain number of loans on their books that were extended to those who were not worthy of that type of credit. It started a very bad trend. And then we had Fannie and Freddie, who continued this cycle and really ramped up that kind of lending in an exponential way with a very ineffective oversight regime, a fault of both Congress and the administration.
If there were one or two changes you could make to get more Republicans on board, what would you do in order to have the bill pass in an improved version?
First of all, an insurance program that would apply to certain classes of assets would help reduce the amount of money flowing out of the Treasury. Also, I think if you put in language about the mark-to-market rule — repealing that instead of just asking for a study about it. There’s not unanimity, but there’s a growing consensus about the impact of the implementation of that rule by the regulators as well as the accounting firms.
I also think that folks are very concerned about the short-selling situation at the FEC. We absolutely have to reinstate the uptick rule, and from what I’m told there’s runaway naked short-selling (the short-selling of stocks one does not actually possess) that tends to imperil the market. We need much stricter enforcement on the naked short-selling.
Failout Vote – Pelosi’s Lack of Leadership
September 29, 2008Although the Republican leadership told Pelosi they would be able to get 70 to 80 votes today, but only ended up with 65 or so, you cannot overlook the complete failure that is Pelosi’s leadership of the Dems in Congress. Sure, her comments preceding the vote scared a handful of Republicans orginally in that 70 or 80 - Pelosi’s ill timed speech and its partisan tone, combined with her calling the GOP lawmakers unpatriotic, isn’t bipartisan coalition building whatsoever. Notwithstanding the fact that the Democrats have a majority in the House and Senate and can pass this thing, they insisted on GOP votes as a cover (polls show heavy disfavor to this package). So here are things of note:
Over ninety Democrats voted against it. Pelosi didn’t whip her Dems on the floor like she would on some lesser issues such as organized labor. She failed.
** 5 committee chairman voted no – this is the Democratic leadership – voting no?! **
**Every Dem member of the House Financial Services Cmte except for Barney Frank voted against it! All but Barney Frank!
Over 5 California democratic reps close to Pelosi voted no?!
Her remarks were clearly ill timed and ill suited – she pulled the thread on this fragile bipartisan group supporting this bill and let it fall apart. I’m not a fan of this bailout / failout package – but her complete lack of leadership is ridiculous. What was Obama doing? Where is he during this time and what has he been trying to do? Why was Obama not working with his party, the holders of the majority in both houses, and building consensus?
B/C Obama loves staying on the periphery on this issue, criticize McCain who went to Washington, and is more worried about himself politically. Always has. Obama’s party is in the majority – they have the votes to pass it, whether the political climate is difficult or not, they have this on THEIR plate and THEIR leadership failed. Remember it was the Dems who told McCain to ”get out of town” b/c he was making it more difficult. Right …. Failout Pelosi and “they’ll call if they need me” Obama are to blame – their party is in the majority, one is the House speaker and the other their nominee for president. Good grief.
- AP
Politico: McCain on the Failout
September 29, 2008From Politico:
Shortly after the bailout vote, a statement from the campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) blamed the loss on “the Democratic leadership: Senators [Barack] Obama and [Harry] Reid, Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and others.
“Their partisan attacks were an effort to gain political advantage during a national economic crisis. By doing so, they put at risk the homes, livelihoods and savings of millions of American families,” said the statement, released in the name of senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
[...]
“From the minute John McCain suspended his campaign and arrived in Washington to address this crisis, he was attacked by the Democratic leadership: Senators Obama and Reid, Speaker Pelosi and others. Their partisan attacks were an effort to gain political advantage during a national economic crisis. By doing so, they put at risk the homes, livelihoods and savings of millions of American families.
“Barack Obama failed to lead, phoned it in, attacked John McCain, and refused to even say if he supported the final bill.
“Just before the vote, when the outcome was still in doubt, Speaker Pelosi gave a strongly worded partisan speech and poisoned the outcome.
“This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.” — McCain-Palin senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin
Before McCain Came To Washington, Senate Democrats Called On McCain For Leadership In Economic Crisis
Video of House Republicans Blaming Pelosi
September 29, 2008AllahPundit at Hotair has it linked here
Kristol: Time for McCain to Step Up
September 29, 2008Bill Kristol at the Standard blog:
No one wants to take ownership of the task of rescuing the economy right now. The Bush-Paulson plan has failed. The administration, House Democrats, and House Republicans (above all) have all proved unable to deliver. But there is someone who might be able to save the economy–and incidentally the Republican party: John McCain.
He should come back to D.C. But this time he needs to take charge–either by laying out the outlines of his own plan, or presiding over meetings at which a real plan that can pass is cobbled together. He might also insist on the immediate passage of a couple of provisions (raising or removing FDIC insurance limits, for example) that could mitigate the damage that could be done over the next few days.
It’s time for McCain to act decisively, and to lead, as he did with the surge. No one else seems up to it
The time is definitely right an McCain could change the downward trickle of his campaign. He needs to get Mitt Romney on camera and have that square jawed man reassure Americans right now that everything is going to be all right.
Pelosi Speech that Killed the Bailout
September 29, 2008From what I understand, House Republicans including our man crush Eric Cantor are indicating that the partisan tone of Nancy Pelosi, including shutting out Hosue Republicans from negotiations led to the failout. The above video is apparently the straw that broke the pig’s back.
Happy the Bailout Failed? Angry the Bailout Failed?
September 29, 2008Here’s a roll call of who you applaud or who your chide.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin does a great job of covering this minute by minute
