I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is that the House of Representatives just voted down the $700 billion bailout plan that the White House and Senate wrestled to produce late last week. The good news is that all 435 House members (including North Carolina's entire Republican delegation, all of which voted no) are up for job performance review in a little over a month.
And Congress wonders why they have a single-digit approval rating. Seriously, they picked a hell of a time to crawl out of President Bush's ass.
Look, no one actually thinks this is a swell idea. (Except for treasury secretary Henry Paulson.) No one is just thrilled to death at the prospect of the taxpayers shelling out billions that should rightly go to our roads and schools just because a bunch of a-hole mortgage lenders got greedy. Like many, I resent that Americans have been struggling for years with rising energy prices, credit debt and health care costs, with Congress and the president showing zero urgency for our economic issues.
But the fact is that if we don't do something, our entire economy will collapse. Look at that, I agree with President Bush on something. I think we can do this in such a way that protects taxpayers - rather than just handing Paulson $700 billion with no strings - and I think the plan that the House just pissed on is as close as we might come to that. Meanwhile, the stock market keeps falling, the rest of the world is getting nervous and some idiot running for Senate in Colorado actually thinks the Treasury's going to print more money.
Any version of the bailout violates so many principles that I don't know where to begin. But the thing is, when grown-ups are faced with an impossible situation, they do what they have to do to get out of it. They make the hard choices. They do not, however, fall to the floor of the House chamber kicking and screaming like toddlers. "Waaah! Socialism! Waaaaaaaaah!!!"
So, to Virginia Foxx and Company - grow. the hell. up. And fix this sh*t, NOW.
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