While Congress Cheers The Bailout...

Today the Congress approved one of the biggest blank checks in history. How could the legislature get behind Wall Street and George Bush's proposal to give our money to these crooks and liars? Well it's really easy actually, just add another $110 billion dollars worth of treats and you'll get the extra votes you need.

From Smart Money:

Some relief could be on the horizon for contracted credit markets if the House on Friday votes for the bailout plan approved by the Senate late Wednesday. While most of our pundits concede the necessity of a rescue in some form, the unappetizing aspects of legislative sausage-making that pushed the price tag for taxpayers up to as much as $850 billion could prolong resistance to the bill.

"What started out as a two-and-a-half page proposal is now hundreds of pages and includes 'bells and whistles' (earmarks) such as: tax benefits for film and television productions, stockcar racetrack owners, wooden arrows designed for use by children, six pages worth of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident; and tax earmark extenders for Virgin Island and Puerto Rican rum-makers, American Samoa, mine rescue teams and mine safety equipment," Charles Schwab analyst Liz Ann Sonders wrote Thursday. "No, I'm not kidding about this!"

Washington analysts like Tom Gallagher, who tracks policy for the ISI Group, began handicapping the House vote like horse track habitués, and decided the odds were in favor of passage by the House.

"We believe the GOP leadership has secured enough votes to pass the bill," he wrote in a Thursday policy report. "But the Democrats expect to pick up a few votes as well, which should produce a majority for the TARP. But the package hasn't changed much and we don't expect very many of the 'no' votes to change their votes, so while we think it will pass, the vote will be close."

So the damn thing passed and now Wall Street will have our their filthy money and Congress can say they got us some goodies that will cost us even more. So while Congress cheers, the rest of the nation is left with more sobering news, such as the fact that the economy lost another 159,000 jobs in September alone.

Of course, Mr. Anti-Earmark Money himself voted for this, which is no surprise to anyone because he has the uncanny ability of being for something in one sentence and changing his position in the next. He could care less about what happens to the rest of us as long as he gets to be President and gives large tax breaks to his wife and the wealthy elite like her.

I guess we should be happy with the pork we got, right? I think I'll get into the wooden arrow business or even better, make rum down in Puerto Rico. Heaven knows we needed that garbage! Maybe I'll just say f*&k it and paint, perhaps something like the latest Banksy piece on Broadway and Howard right now.

Of course, there is some good stuff in there I'll admit. Increasing the FDIC limit to $250K is a nice thing. Honestly though, this is akin to letting the water out of a manmade lake in order to save a couple of yachts while the middle class's S.S. Dingy will be sitting stuck in the muck at the bottom of the pit.

Is Newt Trying To Re-Take The GOP?

A couple of pundit/well to do Washingtonians (Mike Barnicle and Andrea Mitchell-Greenspan) have been hearing whispers around the capitol that yesterday's lack of leadership in the Republican caucus was the result of Newt Gingrich. Why would Gincgrich do such a thing? Perhaps to cap McCain's faltering campaign in the knees and run for President in four years. Of course after hearing the chatter, Gingrich quickly berated them, raising suspicions even higher.

From ThinkProgress:

.....Speaking at the National Press Club today, Gingrich denied Mitchell’s claim, saying MSNBC is wrong and probably “deliberately wrong” because its a “stunningly dishonest network.” “I was reluctantly helping it get through,” he said.

Even throughout yesterday, Gingrich’s position was nearly impossible to pin down. On Glenn Beck’s radio show, he admitted, “I’m not sure if I were in the Congress I could vote against it” while also declaring that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson “should be fired” and that the bailout plan “is still a bad bill.” On Fox News last night, he seemed to praise the House’s rejection of the bill: “The vote today indicated that even when they’d worked for five days to try to improve what was really a pretty terrible original plan that [Paulson] sent up, it still couldn’t get a majority in the House.”

Apparently, Gingrich was against the bailout before he was for it — before he was against it again.

Gingrich is staying extra slimy throughout this situation and it raises the possibility that he wants to bring about a full circle in the GOP. The vehement denial by someone of his stature means that we should all watch out for a resurgent Gingrich. Of course, that would be absolutely hilarious, since it was his reckless behavior that ultimately screwed Republicans out of power two years ago. People are tired of his brand of thuggery (along with the rest of the GOP) and desire leadership in these trying times, not cheap political tricks. Now with that said, if he wants to help divide up what's left of the Republican caucus, then by all means, go right ahead.

Bailing Out Rich Financial Firms Doesn't Make Sense, So Follow The Money

"Follow the money" has almost become a cliché in Washington and for how business is done in our capitol. The reason is because like most clichés, there is a fundamental truth between money and politics and the outcome of legislation when the two are added together. Take yesterday's bailout bill for example, it was a close vote and not political party had little to do with whether one Congresscritter voted for it or didn't. If anything, it was the leadership of both majority and minority that were for it and the legislators lower down the totem poll voted nay.

Answering why that may be, OpenSecrets has an idea:

WASHINGTON -- Members of the House of Representatives who supported bailing out the financial sector with $700 billion in taxpayer money have received 51 percent more in campaign contributions from the finance, insurance and real estate sector in their congressional careers than those who opposed the emergency legislation, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics calculated following the 228-205 vote on Monday that defeated the House bill.

Examining campaign contributions from the industries that were most eager to see the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 passed, the Center found that the gap between lawmakers who supported the bailout and those who successfully opposed it was especially wide among House Democrats.

In this election cycle, Democrats backing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's proposal have collected 78 percent more from the finance, insurance and real estate (or FIRE) sector than those in their caucus who opposed it and, over time, 88 percent more. In dollar figures, the 140 Democrats who supported the bailout proposal have received $792,744 over their careers from the FIRE sector and $188,572 in this cycle, on average. The 95 Democrats who voted against the bill have received $420,686 over their careers and $105,878 in the 2007-2008 cycle. (CRP's campaign finance data goes back to the 1990 election cycle, or the calendar year 1989.)

The 65 Republicans who backed the bill have collected $1,078,533 from the finance sector in their careers and an average of $185,461 toward this election. The 133 Republicans who led the opposition to the bailout have collected, on average, $705,297 over their careers in Congress and $150,381 in this election cycle alone. That translates into a difference of about 23 percent in this cycle and 53 percent over time.

If you head over there to the full article, the nifty graphs show that Republicans got more whether they voted yea or nay based on the natural affinity for Wall Street over in the GOP. Yet the strongest correlation is the money, not partisan identification. The true problem in Washington is the money, hands down. The Center for Responsive Politics does an excellent job of highlighting the discrepancies and should elicit the public to question their representatives on their vote and why they received so much money from the financial sector.

Now while persuadable politicians are a problem, they are merely a symptom of the much larger systemic ailment we endure. If we were able to clean up the system so that money were given from a public account, politicians would be held more accountable by the people and not the industries that fuel their campaigns and cushy retirement gigs. If you live in Arizona or Maine you know what I'm talking about at the state and local level, imagine how much better things would get if we could develop a similar system nation-wide. There are plans in development to go Federal, but they need all of our support, if we do not push our legislators to action, it'll never happen, because it is in their interest to stay elected and ultimately an informed citizenry (with clean elections) wrests power from corporate America and gives it back to the people.