Why the House Republicans Voted Against the Paulson Plan

Let us turn the microphone over to Tim Echols, Treasurer for Paul Broun, R-GA:

FYI, all the Georgia Republicans voted against the bail-out.

As FRC said today, the current proposal fell short of upholding conservative ideals. The Congressional conservatives played an important role in keeping out the already-borderline socialistic White House proposal and some Hugo Chavezesque suggestions from the Democrats, such as allowing judges to set mortgage rates and creating a slush fund for liberal groups like ACORN. However, the final plan did not reform what has created the problem nor did it adequately explain how the taxpayers get their money back. Moreover, the bailout seemed to create a new entitlement in a federal insurance system for every home loan in America.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also highlighted changing the proposal's original scope to include a federal bailout of failed city governments, making all U.S. taxpayers responsible for disastrous city councils. Responsibility is a lost word for many nowadays. Maybe the House vote signals more effort to restore that responsibility.

Tim Echols

As I said, raze the Republican Party to the ground. Plough it under. Scatter salt in the furrows so it can never grow back.

We need another, very different opposition party to face the Democrats. We need it now.

Comments

[MobiusKlein]

Shouldn't those concerns be brought up in the negotiations before the bill gets to the floor? I can't say I heard any of those concerns about the bill before this post.

[Matthew Austern]

The Democratic Party does pretty well as a steady, conservative, pro-business party. It would be nice if we had a liberal/left opposition.

[bob]

These guys wouldn't know conservative ideals if Reagan came back from the grave and bit them in the ass.

[tWB]

Mobius -- these guys only negotiate via torch and pitchfork. It's the revenge of the amateurs up there.

[R Johnston]

"We need another, very different opposition party to face the Democrats."

Well, yeah: we need a party to the left of the Democrats, while the Democrats move ever so slightly right. There's not nearly enough room to the Democrats' right for a rational opposition party that believes in empiricism.

[Zeres]

Damn straight we need to replace the Republicans. This bill came within a handful of votes of passing. We need an opposition party that will stop shit like this dead in the tracks.

I'm happy my representative voted against this pig, she must have got my faxes. But my next message will be more forceful - if anything remotely resembling this bill makes it to a vote, if so much as one cent of taxpayer dollars to buy trouble assets makes it to a vote, then I'm voting her out.

I don't care how she personally votes anymore. I want her working full-time behind the scenes to keep any bailout from seeing the light of day.

[christofay]

Time to cut farmer welfare

[christofay]

past time to cut funding for Christianist initiatives. time to cut corporate welfare for Hallieburton and Blackwater

[Bob Mullen]

Why wait for a new party, let's work with the majority we have. The Paulson bailout that failed today was opposed by the majority of our citizens, in spite of the hype and scare tactics. Amazingly, the House voted the will of the the citizens. This should be a cause for celebration and a call for the negotiation of a better plan, starting from scratch. Who should negotiate that plan? What should it look like?
Paulson is evidently a bright hard-working guy, but he's from Wall Street: he has no useful experience with either bad mortgages or simple justice. Barney Frank and the Democrats, rather than regulating Fannie and Freddie, let them off the hook for derivatives speculation when they promised to make more bad loans. Ironically we have Nancy Pelosi to thank for defeating the bailout: She failed to rally her own troops then shot some opponents that had already surrendered. I thank her, but she is a profile in cowardice. She should have given that speech 6 years ago.
Members of the majority, that is the Republicans and Democrats that voted NO, should caucus together, perhaps listen to Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich for 10 min keynotes, and come up with a new proposal, one that is cheaper and more sure of working. They could start with William Isaacs WSJ piece of Sep 19, or the Swedish plan. I'd give them a week.

[dennisS]

What is their obsession with ACORN all about? What remote connection does that organization have to this issue? And, weren't the Republican bomb throwers the ones that came up with the insurance proposal? Now they're against it?

I'm with other posters in this thread. It's hard to see money Republicans staying with their nutcase partners after this round. The replacement opposition party better appear left of the center-right Dems. Can't wait til the name Republican is never uttered again.

[Phil P]

I'm more and more struck by how politically stupid the administration was in proposing this plan. The crisis was created by creating securities so complex no one understood them and the administration's answer was to create a plan that the public can't understand. And who can blame them, when Bernanke talks about paying more than "fire sale" prices, but "hold to maturity" prices, and even many economists aren't sure it's going to work? If they had simply asked for a more modest sum, like $100 billion for an RFC type fund to buy preferred shares, they might have had more luck, and could have asked for more after the election.

[Hedley Lamarr]

Given that Sweden did a much better job with their financial problems in the early 1990s, this fellow dissing socialism rings false. Do the GOP not see how the present system failed them?

[Don Quijote]

What is their obsession with ACORN all about?

It's dog whistle for Ni**er, n*gger,

[daddyj]

Can anyone verify this?

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/09/mussolini-style-corporatism-in-action.html

The above asserts that last night, in a closed conference call, Paulson assured 800 bankers that the restrictions the Dems have been pushing are all meaningless or easily circumvented.

If true, this demonstrates, with stunning clarity, that this is not a rescue plan, it is a burglary in progress, and we have been bargaining with criminals. The Dems need to immediately drop this fraudulent proposal and start coming up with a plan on their own. And initiate impeachment proceedings against Sec. Paulson.

[bigTom]

Hedley, the R's never let reality intrude on ideology. This is especially instructive coming from Georgia, who's economy is currently shutting down due to an old fashioned gasoline crisis. Yes, there is a shortage due to the gasoline pipelines supply being very low -refineries are slow to come back on line after the hurricanes, and there just isn't enough to go around. Rather than do something unAmerican, like rationing, or asking the citizens to drive less and slow down for the duration, all the red state politicians can do is threaten to jail any gas station owners who raise prices with jail. As, a result it is almost impossible to find fuel, and many businesses are being forced to close. And, as we can see, in the more general issue of the bailout, anything to which the S word can be attached, is to be opposed at any cost. I wish we could have different parties, but the ones we have reflect the poor thinking skills of the population. And the electoral system strongly discourages third parties. And our media complex strongly favors low brow emotional thinking. I can't see how a country with such an anti-intellectual tradition, and dysfunctional media, can possible have a viable democracy. Instead government that is forced to pander to the least informed opinionholders descends into idiocracy.

[Jim Nichols]

You guys didn't know ACORN was sent from Satan...

As someone working to run Democrats at the state and local level here in Georgia (outskirts of Atlanta), I can tell you the right wing machince has done a great job of spreading misinformation. The reality based community is on life-support in these parts.

Left, right, center... lots of people think the Fair Tax is a good idea. Left, right, center.... lots of people think social security is a scam that won't be around in two weeks. Left, right, center.... lots of people think our health care system is the best in the world and that socialism (sic) would destory it.

There is a well-organized group of flat-earth economic and social policy advocates and they elect the the house republican caucus types who are running around D.C. saying this stuff.

Sadly, people down here expect it...

[David in NY]

The real problem is that about 30-40% of the population (maybe more) can't tell that this is nonsense. Can't get rid of the party of the stupid without dimishing the stupid.

[David in NY]

Oh, I see Jim Nichols was giving the details that go with my comment and, in his part of the country, raise the percentage to 80%.

[Nietz]

Sweden has a higher nominal per capita GDP than the US. Given their lower inequality, it's almost certain most Americans earn less than those "Euro-socialists".

Add their better work conditions and security, vacations, retirement, child and health care, poverty... the US should consider copying a lot more than financial crisis management.

[Jim Nichols]

Actually, David, your 80% is almost dead on... I'm the campaign manager for a state senate race ( www.brillantstatesenate.com ) Our most important county in the district--one of the most affluent in the state, with the best schools in the state--votes 80% Rep. 20% Democrat.

We are running against a guy who is not only a two term State Senator but moonlights as a lobbyiest--Ronnie Chance. Ronnie Chance was the campaign manager for Lynn Westmoreland--yes, yes, we grow them in spades--and is an up and coming politico who will probably run for Westmoreland's seat in 2010 because Westmoreland looks to be running for Governor next cycle. So yes 80% would be an empirically sound ballpark figure.

[Michael Carroll]

OK, so... Republicans are mad that Democrats won't quietly take the blame for passing a Republican fix to a Republican mess.

[Adam]

Small world. Jim, I live in central Georgia and have met Ronnie Chance a few times. What a schmuck, just like his mentor Westmoreland. What people need to realize is that people like Westmoreland and Chance aren't evil genius schemers, they're just crazy as hell. I say that as a conservative who abandoned the GOP sometime between the invasion of Iraq and Westmoreland's appearance on the Colbert Report. Still conservative, just no longer able to vote for the crazies.

[Mark D]

... such as allowing judges to set mortgage rates ...
--Idiot Republican

I realize that helping actual people, rather than businesses, is something most Republicans (and quite a few Dems) try to avoid, but what's with the never-ending tirade against re-writing bad mortgages?

Seems to me that doing so would be a mandatory part of any plan -- if people can re-structure their mortgages, they'll be able to pay their bills. If they pay their bills, banks don't lose billions, and the assets currently viewed as worthless would have more stable income backing them. And if that happens, wouldn't that go a long way to solving the issue?

Seriously -- why the hell isn't helping people pay their mortgages an essential, core issue of this discussion? Wouldn't that help stabilize the assets?

Or am I missing something? Because it seems like common sense ...

[Davis X. Machina]

"but what's with the never-ending tirade against re-writing bad mortgages?"

The persistent belief that the bad mortgages are held by African-Americans.

Consequently, cramdowns are just another form of welfare.

These are yahoos who would volunteer to live with their family in a cardboard box under a bridge, and eat sparrows toasted on an old curtain rod, if you only promise them that the black-gay-foreign-liberal-Mexican in the next box over doesn't even get the sparrow. Provided only on the black guy first, and they wouldn't mind being foreclosed on themselves.

[zak822]

"What is their obsession with ACORN all about?"

It's their way to blame minorities for the meltdown, rather than their own lust to create a shadow financial system free from oversight. (Democrats share the blame on this, big time.)

That's also why we keep hearing try to blame the Community Reinvestment Act, saying it forced banks to make loans to people who couldn't pay. For the record, the CRA did not force banks to make bad loans. Banks made bad loans because they wanted to meet their CRA mandated goals without doing any real work to ensure the creditworthiness of the loans applicants. Bad loans were not required by the Act.

[Joe S.]

What Matthew Austern said. And I consider myself one of the conservative Democrats he alluded to.

If the Dems allowed a left opposition to develop, they would move the Overton Window quite a bit over, probably helping the current Democratic party. Much better that a conservative Democratic party loses one in four elections to a decent left party than a conservative Democratic party loses one in two elections to a crazy party.

[PeonInChief]

No, zak822, the CRA had nothing to do with this. Most of the bad loans were made by entities that aren't subject to the CRA. This one is right up there with "Fannie and Freddie did this to us."