It was only a few short days ago as you will recall, that a truly terrible bailout bill was surprisingly defeated in the House of Representatives by a margin of 13 votes. The representatives who voted against the bailout bill were widely regarded as heroic by standing up to the face of social and political pressure.
The bailout bill looked like nothing more than a $700 billion blank check for unaccountable corporate welfare which would be administered by a non-elected government official with lifelong career ties to Wall Street firms who stood to benefit directly from the taxpayers contribution. Despite these obvious flaws in the conception and construction of this bailout plan, it is still rather remarkable that it failed.
I suppose it was only natural to hold out hope that the next version of this bill would actually incorporate some mid-western commonsense with regard to issues like accountability, constitutionality, responsibility for your actions, and a return to fiscally conservative governance. It turns out however that a principled stand of a few legislator worse was simply an opportunity for them to add even more pork to the out-of-control national debt in the form of $150 billion of additional special interest spending.
So, it seems like the original no votes than were not principled statements of values and priorities as much as they were simply an opportunity to hold out for a higher payoff. If these times truly are ones of extraordinary risk for the Republic and its economy, then how in God’s name can you change your vote to yes by adding even more unfinanced debt on the backs of our grandchildren?
This new plan is both immoral and criminally stupid, and therefore I expect it to pass with a wide comfortable margin tomorrow.