Well, this whole bailout failure, and the resultant market collapse, has produced a number of strange bedfellows. Nancy Pelosi and George W. Bush. Dennis Kucinich and Newt Gingrich. John McCain and Barack Obama. Hard left progressives and hard right conservatives. Mike Castle and ….gasp…. me.
Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., broke ranks with the majority of House Republicans to vote for the measure, which was defeated 228-205.
“I just felt the economy needed a boost very badly, and I thought this was the best way to do it,” Castle said in a phone interview shortly after the vote.
I hated this bailout. The idea of giving money to those who created this mess disgusted me. It is the main reason people across this country are opposed to the bailout. No, not because they are opposed to governmental intervention, which is apparently the reason two thirds of Republicans voted against it, but because the public does not want their money propping up failed criminal enterprises that caused this mess.
I agree. But, if something is not done, god knows what happens. Today the market dropped 778 points. Soon, if it is happening already, credit will dry up. Payrolls will not be met. Jobs will be lost. There will be no money to spend, meaning sales of all types of goods will plummet, meaning more companies will fail, meaning more jobs will be lost, and the vicious cycle of Depression begins. The original and unacceptable Bush-Paulson bailout bill was improved by bipartisan congressional negotiations. The bill voted on today did include provisions for doling out the money in installments, limiting executive compensation at the firms participating in the rescue program, giving the taxpayers equity in the securities bought by the government so that there was a possibility that all the money used in the bailout would be recouped.
So, in the end, I was for it.
But that ship has sailed.
On Friday, I wondered aloud with some of the Delaware Liberal illuminati as we awaited the start of the Presidential debate if we could just fast forward five years and see the affects of doing nothing versus doing the bailout. I guess in a small way, we are going to be living through that fast forward experiment over the next few days or weeks. A part of me still says let all these banks and firms fail, and let’s start over. That will require a lot of suffering of the innocent though, which is what is making me support some kind of rescue plan. I guess we will just have to wait and see.