Rosh Hashanah (Or, What's Up With Nancy Pelosi?)
The day after Congress fails to shovel $700 billion into the maw of Wall Street, in the midst of what economists call the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, you'd think that members would roll up their sleeves and get back to work to produce some kind of rescue package for the U.S. economy. When the Administration is in full panic mode, pleading for urgent emergency measures, when markets are experiencing unprecedented turmoil, you'd think Congress would be responsive. No. Instead, Congress has adjourned for the beginning of the Jewish High Holy days. Maybe it'll come back to work Wednesday. Or Thursday. But Tuesday is a normal working day. Businesses are open, banks are open, the mail is being delivered. Wall Street is open, as are markets around the world. Maybe during an ordinary time Congress taking a day or two off would be a charming mark of respect to a religious minority. But taking time now just adds insult to injury. If it had been a question of taking Easter off my guess is that Congress would've stayed in session. (And does Congress ever even take any Muslim holidays?) I don't see any excuse for Congress here, nor any excuse for people not to complain about it. And I wonder whether that's the point.
Yesterday John Boehner objected that Nancy Pelosi's partisan speech to the floor of the House torpedoed Republican efforts to gather votes. Mocked immediately by Barney Frank ('someone hurt your feelings so now you're going to hurt the country'), nevertheless Boehner was right. I watched the tape of Pelosi speaking and I can see how it infuriated Republicans who already didn't want to vote for the bill, because where they're up for re-election in tight races they're afraid of public outrage over the proposed bail-out and because philosophically to be at all consistent they must oppose socialism for Wall Street. So Pelosi savagely kicked the bill in the teeth and then closed her half of Congress for a day or two. She might as well send out engraved invitations requesting a complete rewrite.
It appears nobody really wants to take responsibility and that's understandable. What the Administration's original bill would have done, probably, amounted to little more than dumping money at one end of Wall Street only for it to be sucked out the other. Even as rewritten by Congress it was thin gruel for main street. The best thing would be to start over from scratch but the issue has become too politically explosive for the Democrats to do that entirely on their own, though in theory they could. Political reality, whether we like it or not, calls for muddling along.
There is not a minute to lose but essential elements of crafting a good bill will take some time. Better to do it right. The House, for example, must have hearings. It's not as if the type of financial crisis we're experiencing is completely unknown: lots of relatively recent, pertinent case studies exist (Sweden comes to mind), and it's not that difficult to figure out from them the sorts of policies more or less likely to work. Among these is the notion that shrinking the financial sector is a good thing, conversely, that bailing it out so it can continue to exist intact is not.
A habit of burning money has become thoroughly ingrained from our mind-boggling military budget, not to mention dysfunctional spending in so many other areas. No doubt massive waste seems perfectly natural to the Administration and Congress. Hopefully, this crisis will shake things up enough for us to try thinking for a change.
Posted by George Kenney on September 30, 2008 11:10 AM 
« Half-cocked Legislation | Main | Financial Ghouls »
Comments
Yes, I was shocked that they did not elect to work through this semi-holiday given the "crisis" we are in.
Makes one think the crisis is being oversold.
Posted by: daveg | October 1, 2008 12:05 AM