Nancy Pelosi says that http://www.msnbc.msn.com/.... She's nuts.
How did we end up with such idiotic Democratic leadership? They just gave $700B to an administration that has resisted oversight and been wrong on every major foreign policy and domestic issue of our day. And who gets to control that spending? Hank Paulson, who contributed to the mess by pushing for deregulation when he worked on Wall Street and ignored the warning signs of an economy on the edge. And, who will be out as Treasury Secretary in 4 months. Gee, I bet he feels like he needs to be accountable.
From the MSNBC article cited above:
At Pelosi’s press briefing Thursday, she indicated that the $800 billion is expected to be offset, in part, by congressional action raising tax rates on higher-income people.
Nancy, three things have to happen in order for you to get those offsets. One, Obama has to win. Two, we will need a filibuster proof majority in the Senate in order to deal with Republican opposition to that plan. Three, we will have to cut other programs that would have been paid for with this increase (I think Obama has a few ideas how he wants to spend the new revenues). And of course, this all assumes an economy healthy enough to have a tax increase actually increase governmental revenues. Which brings me to the usually very bright Barney Frank:
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., said shortly before the House voted that the cost of the bailout will not be $700 billion, but far less than that. For that reason, he said, the bailout will not inhibit the ability of Congress to spend on roads, bridges, public education and other items.
"It’s not going to cost $700 billion," he said, referring to the bailout portion of the bill. "It’s going to cost something. We are buying assets with that money, which we will own and we will resell. Nobody knows what the net cost will be. ... It depends on how the economy performs."
This sounds like the Democratic version of "the Iraq War will only cost $10B and will be paid for from oil revenues." Why do these people believe the Administration will act responsibly? Why do they believe that they will have effective oversight? I guarantee this will come back to haunt Frank when the bailout costs every bit of $700B and we find out that $200B (at least) "disappeared" or bought entirely worthless assets from Wall Street firms.
If they really intended to get an offset to this bailout it would be in the bill, but alas, it is not. In fact they larded it up with even more cuts in order to buy Republican votes.
Pelosi is the worst Democratic leader in the history of our party. The sooner we replace these clowns with some real leaders who don't panic when neocons tell them too, and have the guts to discharge their Constitutionally mandated roll as Congressmen, the better.
I just hope we're not broke or being ruled by corporo-fascism before that happens.