Castle Voted Yes.
Roll Call on the vote is here (warning PDF).
Congress is in recess until Thursday, in observance of the Jewish High Holidays. So no vote will take place until then, at the earliest.
Now, will the Compromise Bill that failed today be voted on again? Perhaps, considering the fact that, according to Republican congressional leaders Boehner, Blunt and Cantor, many Republicans voted against the bill today because their feelings were hurt by Speaker Pelosi accurately describing how we got into this mess. Apparently Republicans do not want to be blamed for their failures, and truth hurts their feelings.
So maybe they will get over their petulance by Thursday.
But then again, maybe Republicans did us a favor today. Maybe we can now craft a bill that will truly address in progressive terms the crisis. Maybe we can develop a plan that places the burden of the bailout on those who most benefited from it, and that provides help to those most hurt by this crisis. Maybe we craft a plan that spends less. That provides more regulation, no corporate tax giveaways, that punishes rather than rewards those corporate executives responsible for this crisis. The House Republicans who voted no today won’t like it, but I dare say they have abdicated today any voice they should have in crafting a solution.
As for the Presidential race, the bill’s failure today is a devastating blow to the McCain campaign. He was taking credit for the bill’s passage this morning before the bill was actually voted on. So that begs the question: should he know take the blame for its failure?
Booooo!
Expected from Castle but nonetheless….BOOOOOO!
Guess the friendly neighborhood bankers meant more to him than his constituents.
“will the Compromise Bill that failed today be voted on again?”
No, but I think some form of amended bailout will eventually pass.
Castle: what else is new?
I agree Mike.
At noon McCain took credit, then after lunch he tacitly blamed Dems and the speaker for the failure for playing the partisan blame game. Then in the next sentence he blamed Obama and the Dems. (The exact audio is on npr.org – All Things Considered.)
This thing is surreal.
Rep. Pelosi’s “I told you so” was pretty dumb.
The legislation was not flawless but it did address most of the liquidity, risk and solvency issues.
If the GOP members voted against the package because they disagreed, that is their right and it should be respected. If they did it because of an emotional component (Pelosi) there are better ways to register your opinion.
The closer this bill comes to being more stabilization and less bailout the better we will be.
I poop on the compromise bill.
The sharp reality is that something needs to be done. There probably is no perfect solution. It’s difficult to comprehend that a situation that took many years to be corrupted can be repaired in less than 2 weeks and with one single piece of legislation. Mike Castle’s vote does not dishearten me.
Basically it’s simple…
At question is whether the US stands behind its investments.. Are we the most secure place to do business in? If we are, then the money comes here… If we are not, the money goes elsewhere…
Yesterday, we sent a big signal that we are not the best place to put ones money.
Personally, I would recommend putting ones money in China now…
I wonder what KHN has to say about this important crises…
Oh, nothing yet…
At question is whether the US stands behind its investments.
This doesn’t seem right. As far as Treasuries go, I don’t think that anyone is (yet) suggesting that we won’t pay those back. As for mortgages, we already insure the FHA loans, and there is an implicit guarantee of the loans held by Fannie and Freddie (besides we own all of those assets now, anyway). The stuff that is out there and exploding the banks are the (private label) credit derivatives which the US never insured in the first place.
The Fed released a ton of dollars into the system yesterday to assure the dollar buyers.
Why would you put money in China? If the US economy slows down enough that we aren’t buying anything (which is close to the case now), the Chinese will certainly feel the pain too. They are the ones making half of the stuff we are overextended in trying to buy in the first place.