Last week, Congress was *this close* to having a deal worked out … then John McCain swooped in –crushing all hopes of a bipartisan financial rescue plan. With presidential politics injected into the craziness, the House just defeated the bill. The Dow just dropped another 700 points.
Congressional leadership needs to get their act together. If you didn’t have the votes to pass the legislation, it never should have been brought to the floor. Nancy Pelosi: Get your House in order. Literally.
We need to come up with a package that stops the bleeding on Wall Street, while protecting the taxpayers so we’re not nationalizing businesses that rightly should be privatized. This whole financial crisis has been positioned poorly from the start. I think the larger point is being missed by the general public. Yes, Wall Street is in crisis mode; however, it’s not just the rich people running financial institutions that will suffer as a result. Here in Central Florida, Westgate Resorts — one of the country’s largest time-share companies — announced that it’s laying off hundreds of workers due to the economic squeeze. This is one of the area’s largest employers — and those employees are about to feel the wrath of Wall Street’s collapse. Instead of billing this as a Wall Street bailout, our leaders should have clearly articulated how this will impact Main Street. It’s not as simple as Wall Street vs. Main Street. The trickle down effects of the crisis will impact Main Street just as severely as the fat cats on Wall Street.
I tend to lean liberal; however, I don’t think the government should do everything for everyone. But, when even Warren Buffet is saying that the government needs to intervene, I think the governement needs to intervene. And, not is a political gamesmanship kind of way. To quote my favorite political movie, “We’ve got serious problems, and we need serious people.”