David Brooks is Unhappy with the Republican Party

Unbelievably,Drier voted yes. Who knew?

Just for giggles, I've figured out what the October surprise will be. McCain will dump Palin for somebody more mainstream, like Romney or Guiliani or somebody Texan. His numbers will soar, he'll win in November, and we'll all be f####d.

I sent my Rep. an email yesterday. Sadly, I'm pretty sure that Don Young doesn't listen to liberal Democrats.

Kevin sounds like he lost a lot of money today in the market. And so does every gasbag on TV Who looks like they are about to cry because the market went south and they are now poorer than they were yesterday.

Eat shit assholes. No rule says the Dow has to go up 4.3% every year forever and ever.

[O]ur congress members ... seem to be hearing from no one but refugees from talk radio and Lou Dobbs.

Bite me. Seriously. You have the gall to call other people "elite pundits"? Excuse us if we don't have your same faith in our Glorious Overlords. These are the Same People who have been screwing the country blue for nearly 8 years and there's no reason to think they've changed their ways. In fact, there's pretty clear evidence to the contrary.

I've figured out what the October surprise will be. McCain will dump Palin for somebody more mainstream, like Romney or Guiliani or somebody Texan. His numbers will soar, he'll win in November, and we'll all be f####d.

Why would McCain's numbers soar in the wake of his admitting to a catastrophic error of judgment? Why would throwing Palin (far more beloved by the nutso GOP base than McCain is) under the bus help keep the indispensable Republican ground team loyal? And you do realize that we are getting to be too late to remove Palin's name from more and more state ballots, right?

The stock market is NOT the issue. It's just a symptom of a much larger disease.

Kevin stated it better than anyone else I've read. Credit is the oxygen of global business, and because the market has been flooded with toxic assets that no one knows how to value and that everyone previously thought was "good as cash."

As a result, no one knows who is solvent and who is credit-worthy, so the commercial paper market -- which floats short term loans to businesses and banks so they can balance their books each night -- has shut down. Businesses are living on lines of credit right now, but those will soon dry up as well.

And when that happens, the hardware store down the street will go out of business because, suddenly, it can't get a line of credit to buy inventory. Farmers will go bust because they can't get credit to pay for seed and labor. Big corporations will have to severely cut back operations because they won't be able to fund them.

This is no longer about stocks and bonds. It's gone way beyond that. The unregulated global commercial banking system is collapsing because of a crisis of confidence, just as the consumer banking system collapsed in 1929. If it isn't stopped, the effects will be just as profound.

So I simplified the last post. It's late. Cut me some slack, please. But, I did it w/o the use of one pejorative toward any one politician or group of politicians, nor any person posting to this forum.

The name calling and the nasty deprecating calls towards single individuals need not be.

What i don't understand is what the Republican position wants.

The Democratic position is that maybe it's too much money or not enough controls on how its applied.

What's the Republican one? And does it have anything to do with what their voters are saying?

Because I bet it's just a smoke screen for their tantrum.

There ARE numerous ways to go at what I would like to call an "economic stabilization plan", and I think we'd be a bit better off if we elected people who actually had some horse sense about what makes business run, how financial markets work, what goes on in global finance, and the like. Lawyers and career politicians don't, so they are easily swayed by their special interest friends, and don't know even the temperature of the water through which they are steering the ship of state.

My guess is they are trying their best to learn on the fly, but it's not something you get an appreciation for in a series of legislative consults with heightened tensions all around you. There WERE voices of reason trying to get the situation under control through regulations years ago, but the voices representing "Dead End Street" and those representing "Wall Street" were the only ones politicians (both parties) paid much attention to. You get the government someone else pays for, as in, "buys off".

Then, down the road, you pay the price. We'll be paying a big big price.

When credit markets freeze, Congresspersons will get their NEXT lesson, at our expense. Shame on them for making this a political hot potato. Clean house (and senate). It's been amateur hour way too long. That goes for you, too, Ms. Pelosi.

Terry,

You forgot that Republicans also want a solution that:
(c) continues the Norquist trickle-down insanity by cutting capital gains taxes and further removing oversight.

Republican claims that they just want to help would be a lot more credible if they hadn't spent the last 8 years plundering the treasury and trying to bankrupt the government. Or if their solution to a problem occasionally was something other than another tax cut.

It's been amateur hour way too long.

This is awfully optimistic. So, like, we'll have a whole new team of Mister Smiths after the next election, except they'll have business and economic expertise and will make every decision in the interest of the nation, rather than their constituency. The people that fund their campaigns and vote for them will altruistically expect nothing back for their support, because it's a big nation, and individual communities and states will have a spontaneous desire to subordinate their own interests to the common good.

Sounds a bit like a passage from Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward", doesn't it?

Claiming that those who oppose this bailout (as it stands now) are responsible for future economic weakness is extremely disingenuous.

The seeds of this recession were sown long time ago. The Fed and Treasury have been fighting this problem since Aug '07 when they fired their first shot with a surprise 75 basis point rate cut in discount lending rate. They thought they could quietly contain this crisis without having to tell the kids about it.

Brooks can go suck some nuts. Don't go around blaming the current set of problems on those who are not willing to part with 700 Billion dollars for bailing out irresponsible bankers and their investors. Why weren't these banks selling their stock to raise more cash late last year when the problems were already recognized and known? Nobody ever bailed me out when I lost money in the stock market. They passed tough bankruptcy laws and charged high fees for services. Now they want us to assume all their toxic crap?

If this bailout is passed in its current form we will be setting ourselves up for a bigger problem down the road.

I think the question we're all failing to ask here is "Does Bush really need $ 700 billion"? It's why Bush always has a crisis - so nobody will ask questions, but just give the money without oversight, without time to really look at what the actual price tag to bailout the investiment bankers really is! How much is a cushion amount. Does it really have to be $ 700 Billion?

THAT is what I want to know, and I don't think it stupid to ask that question.

Nancy Pelosi is wrapped up in proving how bad Bush is, so bad that he needs $ 700 billion to bail himself out, that no oversight is done, no justification, just a handout, done purely for political reasons.

Hell maybe Bush needs even less than a third of that money to shore up the investment Banks - does anyone really know?

Pelosi merely does whatever Bush wants, and it's why the FISA Bill was so ugly, as we don't really who Bush is wiretapping, and Pelosi as guilty as Bush for all his law breaking. I want some government oversight, and that isn't too much to ask for, is it?

after looking at that graphical map of the bailout votes, it is interesting to note that there is just one state of any size whose entire Congressional delegation (Republican and Democrat) voted against the bailout - and that would be Arizona - guess Mr. McCain has as little influence there as elsewhere...

I could not disagree more Kevin, and you're being completely obnoxious and insulting to the majority of Americans, including rafts of PhDs, who think this Wall Street bailout bill is a turkey.

The failure here is that there has been zero transparency. There have been no public hearings, no testimony from experts, no testimony from Wall Street executives, no committee process, no amendments, almost no floor debate -- nothing that would suggest even the slightest regard for democratic processes. And it's precisely because this bailout is such a horrible idea that political elites failed to consult the shareholders: the American voters. So they got their asses handed to them. Washington just received a massive injection of democracy, and it's about freakin' time.

Heck, there are even many experts saying this bailout would deepen and broaden an economic downturn.

By the way, stock market futures are up this morning. Guess what? The world didn't end. The Treasury, SEC, FDIC, Federal Reserve, and its central bank allies around the world are still powerful institutions with incredible tools at their disposal. (Paulson begrudgingly admits as much.) Congress's role is to be the sober one and not act erratic and impulsive like...well, like McCain.

I agree with 'rational' on this. I know that letting the chips fall where they may is going to cause problems and I'm not against some gov't intervention on this to cushion the blow, but just handing over the money, few if any questions asked, to the greediest and most unethical big wigs in the country is just plain wrong. This is a very big issue and the kind that in history books will be seen as a startling turning point in the country, but I think the bailout as it stood, would have seemed like a disastrous furtherance of the same corruption. A properly constructed intervention would by its nature have a better outcome. Has reason just flown out the window? I agree that Kevin is starting to sound more and more like a person who took a hit on the market and less and less like a card carrying liberal. I'm all for government taking a role in our lives, but I want it to provide health care and good education for kids and adults, public safety and programs to enable energy independence and a green future, NOT to band aid the financial world at its highest tier, which would allow poor, Republican-crafted policy to continue to hang on.

Our elected reps only care about two things:
1. Getting re-elected.
2. Raising money to get re-elected.

These two reasons are why I find Mondays vote so interesting. Republicans looked at the public anger at the bailout and voted no. This no vote may help short term with #1, but look who contributes to their #2. Wall street, big business and K street are not happy. Watch where the money goes and feel the Republicans pain.

But apparently none of us are calling our congress members, who seem to be hearing from no one but refugees from talk radio and Lou Dobbs.

Excuse me? So the vast, vast majority of the people who are against this bailout are all mouth-breathers? Thanks for your condescension.

I really, really don't understand why you are so in the tank for this bailout. I've been reading you for years, and I am just flummoxed. This bailout has zero, absolutely ZERO, guarantee of working. A $700 billion bet with no guarantee? No thanks. There are plenty of other alternatives out there, alternatives that we can get behind. Alternatives that recapitalize banks, provide relief to homeowners, and get our several tons of flesh from the people that caused this.

There are some of us, like myself, who have lived below our means for years. I have no debt. I am solvent, unlike most of Wall Street. This is my choice. I sure could have gone wild with mortgages and debt had I wanted to, but I'm an adult. So do you have any wonder why people like me are 100% opposed to rewarding the people who screwed up? Where is my reward for playing by the rules?

I'm sick and tired of rewarding idiots. No more.

No one seems to paying attention to the $480-620 Billion (depending on who you read) the Fed made available yesterday. Seems like they weren't waiting for a vote. If they can do this, why do we need a bill for $700 Billion?

Kevin...I really recommend that you take a deep breath and resist the urge to lash out against the opponents of this thing. Sure some of them may be way off base, but there's room for honest disagreement here. Lets focus on getting the job done rather than lashing out.

I remain hopeful that we can get a better deal. They sky hasn't fallen - yet.

It's refreshing to hear the media actually question GOP talking points, such as exactly how a capital gains tax cut would help.

Kevin wrote: "... if your guy/gal voted No maybe you should give 'em a call on Tuesday morning."

I will indeed be calling my representative, Democrat Chris Van Hollen of Maryland -- to let him know that his support for this bill is one of the main reasons I will be voting for the Green Party candidate who is challenging him in November.

As far as I can tell, this bill is about nothing but the CheneyBush gang trying to stampede Congress into handing them a giant blank check with which to reward their kleptocratic cronies on Wall Street for trashing the US financial system, and has nothing whatever to do with actually addressing the causes of the problem or the severe economic pain of the working class (including the so-called "middle class") people of this country.

Paulson's original proposal was a scrawled note handed by a bank robber to a teller: put the money in the bag and keep your hands in sight. And the "compromise" bill did little but throw in some cosmetic improvements.

Both houses of Congress should hold extensive, in-depth hearings to examine a range of proposals, from the widest possible range of voices and views, on what needs to be done. If that has to wait until the next Congress -- with an even larger Democratic majority -- that's fine with me.

I certainly don't want Congress signing on to a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation produced by the most corrupt and blatantly criminal administration in the history of this country, legislation that is clearly intended to enrich their ultra-rich cronies and financial backers at the expense of everyone else.

But sure, Kevin. Go ahead and let the Bush gang lead you around by the nose -- the same way you supported their case for invading Iraq. Go ahead and sneer at anyone who raises questions -- the same way you sneered at the wackos who questioned the Bush gang's case for war.

After all, you'll have plenty of opportunity to change your mind later, after the damage has been done -- the same way you eventually wised up about Iraq.

Crisis management badly executed simply creates a bigger crisis.

My rep is Nancy Pelosi, so apparently I should write her to tell her not to give any more mean mean speeches that might hurt Eric Cantor's feelings.

I will never understand how Kevin Drum got suckered into believing that it's vitally important that we give $800 billion in new spending authority to George W. Bush to use in his last four months in office.

God, just typing those words gives me goosebumps.