It is heartening to see that the Congress apparently learned its lesson from years of being servile to the Bush administration and is acting with some deliberation, as is its Constitutional mandate and requirement.
Weekends are good for developing this kind of perspective. I wonder if there has been a study of the role of weekends as pauses in historical crises?
A couple of good quotes from the sudden torrents of writing on this bailout:
Dan Froomkin is at his usual sharpness:
Of all people, Newt Gingrich is making sense in his strident opposition to the bailout. I know he senses a means of hamstringing Democrats, and there are plenty of wacky asides in this column such as whed he breezily dismisses those believing in "static analytical model[s]" as opposed to his "historic" models on capital gains taxes. But here he certainly sounds cleareyed:
Weekends are good for developing this kind of perspective. I wonder if there has been a study of the role of weekends as pauses in historical crises?
A couple of good quotes from the sudden torrents of writing on this bailout:
Dan Froomkin is at his usual sharpness:
"Does President Bush's support for a radical financial bailout represent a reversal in his political ideology? Not likely....
... the plan concocted by two Bush appointees features some distinctive characteristics of major Bush initiatives past: It would be spectacularly expensive, primarily benefit the very rich, and grant the executive branch unlimited power with no transparency or accountability. "
Of all people, Newt Gingrich is making sense in his strident opposition to the bailout. I know he senses a means of hamstringing Democrats, and there are plenty of wacky asides in this column such as whed he breezily dismisses those believing in "static analytical model[s]" as opposed to his "historic" models on capital gains taxes. But here he certainly sounds cleareyed:
"Implementation of the Paulson plan is going to be a mess. It is going to be a great opportunity for lobbyists and lawyers to make a lot of money. Who are the financial magicians Paulson is going to hire? Are they from Wall Street? If they’re from Wall Street, aren't they the very people we are saving? And doesn’t that mean that we’re using the taxpayers’ money to hire people to save their friends with even more taxpayer money? Won't this inevitably lead to crony capitalism? Who is going to do oversight? How much transparency is there going to be? We still haven't seen the report which led to bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is "secret". Is our $700 billion going to be spent in "secret" too? In practical terms, will a bill be written in public so people can analyze it? Or will it be written in a closed room by the very people who have been collecting money from the institutions they are now going to use our money to bail out?"
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