What is with Pelosi, she won't bring Partisan legislation to the President to sign for this bailout? Now the Dems need the Republican house minority to be on the bill? Since when does the majority party of both houses need minority approval to pass an allegedly great bill, that is desperately needed, in this supposed dire bailout? The bailout sucks! The Dems are too cowardly to take the heat alone. According to Lindsey Graham 20% of the $ is not going to debt relief it is going to ACORN! Follow the money. Why is Chris (I got a no interest loan from Countrywide mortgage) even on this committee? Republicans Pence, Blunt, et. al. should schedule a press conference and discuss why this legislation sucks.

I was unaware that the "Dems" asked specifically for this bill more than anyone else
I am aware that the president and his officials and advisers are begging for this bill.
The bill is not a great bill. It doesn’t guarantee any outcome and no one can.
The bill is not a great bill. It does put a vast amount of taxpayer money at risk.
There has been wise bipartisan support and action to slow things up, limit CEO and other officer salaries, and to dole out the funds a portion at a time if at all.

I have heard the “Dems” don’t remember who specifically say they will not pass this bill on their own because it may well not be any good and they don’t want to take the blame for passing it alone. This is honesty and if there isn’t enough support for it shouldn’t be passed

So again:



Absolutely!



Great word allegedly. The guys saying the economy was strong yesterday now say there is an economic emergency. They are dishonest, or incompetent or both and shouldn’t be trusted either way.



Yes it does!



Republicans and Democrats have both said something like this.

Taxpayer money "at risk", my ass. It's gone for good. Chance of it coming back = 0.

What I don't understand - if default on mortgages is the source of this mess, than the banks involved now own hundreds of thousands of houses. I mean, it's not like the payments aren't made so the bank ends up with bupkiss; they get the freakin' house! Those are ASSETS. Is all that value being accounted for? Who gets to keep the houses after the USofA pays these banks indebtedness? I think we should hold a raffle...give the properties away to the folks paying for the bailout.

Ummm... yeah... that's exactly how it all works! You've got a great solution...

WTF?

Yes, it needs bipartisan support. Some kind of bailout is necessary to keep the economy from total collapse, and it looks like the markets won't wait much past the weekend. But to most people, it looks like taking money from the public to give it to big Wall Street institutions--which it is, but people don't realize that they may suffer through years of recession if we don't do it. So public opinion is running against it,even though most of them will end up far worse off if we do nothing.

In such a situation, if Democrats to the unpopular but necessary thing, it would be easy for Republicans to take the other side and let the Democrats take all the political heat. No Democratic politician would sensibly allow that, especially going into an election. If it's really necessary to do this bailout, then both parties have to be willing to do the necessary but unpopular thing, or it won't pass. Yes, Democrats are unwilling to take the heat alone, because no one party should have to do so.

And you have the debt relief/ACORN part wrong. The bill doesn't put 20% of the bailout funds to anyone (and 20% of $700 billion to any organization would be a patently ridiculous number on its face). It says that 20% of any profits from the sale of any government-purchased asset will go to the Housing Trust Fund. There may be no overall profits to be had; most people think that we'll be fortunate if we break even. So the overall profits from the assets sold at greater than cost will likely be relatively small, and 20% of that number is smaller still.

Second, the Housing Trust Fund are funds that cities and states create to support affordable housing. I've tried to do a little research and while some conservative web sites have cited the funds as a "boondoggle" for Acorn and La Raza, I haven't found any independent data to support the allegation. Moreover, even if some of the money--if there is any profit to be had--goes to some of these organizations, there's no indication as to how much it would be. I'd bet they're not the only organizations working on affordable housing, and I've found no numbers indicating how much Acorn would receive.

If research bears out the allegation, then fine. But the "20% of the bailout" figure is flat out incorrect. I think the wildness of the accusation calls for a little investigation before assuming its truth.

True but if you listen and believe Fox, then you'll end up believing all kinds of things that aren't true.

Again:
The bill is not a great bill.
It doesn’t guarantee any outcome and no one can.
It does put a vast amount of taxpayer money at risk.

True but if you listen and believe Fox, then you'll end up believing all kinds of things that aren't true.

Again:
The bill is not a great bill.
It doesn’t guarantee any outcome and no one can.
It does put a vast amount of taxpayer money at risk.

Added:
No one knows what will happen if this bill is passed.
No one knows what will happen if this bill is not passed.

The sad thing is that neither Obama or McCain can say that and expect to be elected. They are expected to snap their fingers and miraculously fix years debt accrual and mismanagement of or economy.

Thanks for the clarification of the percentage of funds to be to "affordable housing" although why ACORN should receive any funds is a mystery to me. Aren't they still being investigated for voter fraud in Ohio?
So I guess all the hoopla about this Congress being a leadership Congress is crap. No open debate, no document review, closed door back room meetings, public lies... Just 9 days ago Reid said "no one knows what to do" but now he knows exactly what to do only he can't make anything public. Why do you believe anything this bunch says? It is the foxes guarding the chicken coop.

Can't speak to the Ohio situation. I believe they do good work elsewhere. I'm not going to say all corporations are bad based on Enron. And again, the connection between ACORN and the Housing Trust Fund is not clear to me. Perhaps they are one among many organizations that are involved with affordable housing. I doubt any of the funds go directly to the organizations, but I could be wrong.



There's simply no time for extended hearings. As I wrote above, the markets are on the verge of collapse. Joe Nocera writes in today's NY Times: "If the country had more time, I would argue that we put ideas like that [one put forward by Andrew Feldstein of Blue Mountain Capital Management] into the sunlight and see if they flower. But we don't have any more time. Nine days ago, the financial markets were staring into the abyss; the only thing that pulled them back was the news that the Treasury and the Federal Reserve had come up with a bailout plan. And the only thing that kept them from falling back is the expectation that the plan will be approved quickly."

"Leadership" is a two way street. We can't expect our elected representatives to exhibit "leadership" by voting against their constituents' wishes because then they'll just be voted out of office. The system is designed so that we, the voters, are ultimately the ones accountable, and we can't expect our representatives to make hard decisions unless we're willing to make hard decisions. And today, too many of us seem to expect our representatives to work miracles and threaten to vote them out when they can't meet our unrealistic expectations. That kind of politics is unsustainable.

And I don't think it's foxes guarding the hen house at all. Lots of these people in Congress could be making a lot more money elsewhere. Most of them have no personal stake in the terms of the bailout. I think most of them are doing the best they can in a difficult situation. I don't think Reid says he knows exactly what to do. And anyone who has been involved in negotiations knows that making intermediate stages public can blow up a deal.

I just don't see the picture of those serving in Congress rubbing their hands together and talking with each other about "how can we screw the taxpayers today?" Some of them have honest differences of opinion, and some are sometimes too blinded by ideology. It's easy to assume the worst, but I see little to back it up.

And if we're concerned about the influence of big money on politics, then the solution (as I've said before) is to support candidates and organizations that push for public campaign financing of elections. I've talked to numerous people in Congress and have heard a lot of support for it; perhaps with more discussion and more public support, it will eventually happen.

There's simply no time for extended hearings. As I wrote above, the markets are on the verge of collapse.

There are quite a few with excellent credentials saying so and just as many it seems saying quite the opposite. So semi-ignorant laymen like me consult their unreliable gut as it were. What else can we do?

I've heard a few saying the opposite, but not nearly as many. I admit I don't have inside information, but I don't think the columnists I read have an ideological agenda.

And we all saw what the markets did until people thought Congress had a plan in place.

And if the Democrats think it's urgent to act...well, let's just say they're not exactly the party of "let's bail out Wall Street on a whim!"

It's possible that most of us are wrong. (Heck, there are still true libertarians out there saying we should just let the market deal with it.) But I don't think that's a risk most of us want to take.