205-228
What an interesting vote! Economic libertarians voting against government protection of economic libertarianism. (Democrats supported the bill 140-95; Republicans opposed it 65-133.) Call these guys what you will; they are not, for the most part, hypocrites. What I will call one of them, namely Darrell Issa (R-CA), is astonishingly poorly prioritized, because he proclaimed his opposition to the bailout would amount to "a coffin on top of Ronald Reagan's coffin (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/business/30bailout.html)." Aside from this just being a rhetorically weird thing to say, it's not comforting to know that our representatives place some early-eighties economic project ahead of our, umm, economy.
There are lots of reasons to oppose this bailout, the main one being that without it our financial system can finally take its 30-years-of-Reaganomics medicine. The shenaniganical argument that cutting taxes for rich people magically makes everybody money is finally getting its day in court. I hope enough of our representatives voted against the bailout because it's no alternative to smart regulation of the markets and an economy grown by the development and sale of something truly useful, like green technology, as opposed to the bubble train that's kept us afloat this long.
There are lots of reasons to oppose this bailout, the main one being that without it our financial system can finally take its 30-years-of-Reaganomics medicine. The shenaniganical argument that cutting taxes for rich people magically makes everybody money is finally getting its day in court. I hope enough of our representatives voted against the bailout because it's no alternative to smart regulation of the markets and an economy grown by the development and sale of something truly useful, like green technology, as opposed to the bubble train that's kept us afloat this long.
posted by john at
2:33 PM
2 Comments:
Are you contradicting yourself? To me it sounds like you're accusing Dan Issa of putting politics ahead of the economy. Are you doing the same thing by wanting the bill to fail just so the economy can suffer from what you hope will appear to be republican policies?
Au contraire! I am concerned about the long-term health of the economy, which, I admit, may require some short-term losses. I think Issa agrees, but I oppose the bailout (as written so far) for the economy's sake; Issa appears to oppose it for Reaganomics' sake. I.e., he appears to be saying that he doesn't want a massive government spending bill because, basically, that's not how you do Reaganomics.
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