Dance with the one that brung ya
Although I'm convinced some kind of large-scale federal intervention is necessary to correct the current economic crisis, the bill that was voted down yesterday was, in my opinion, fatally flawed. It did little to address the fundamental problem of escalating home foreclosures and plummeting house prices, mainly because it did nothing to modify the sub-prime mortgages at the root of this mess. The only way to fix that is for Congress to modify existing mortgages in such a way that the risk of foreclosure is reduced; the failed bailout bill did little in that regard.
Still, this is interesting:
The Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington nonprofit group that studies money and politics, reports that on average, lawmakers who voted in favor of the bailout bill have received 51 percent more in campaign contributions from sources in the finance, insurance and real estate industries -- or FIRE industries, for short -- over their congressional careers than those who opposed the emergency legislation.
The bailout bill would have done nothing for the little guy facing foreclosure, but it would have done lots and lots for the bankers and financiers who created this catastrophe and paid Congress not to regulate them too awful much.
Gosh. What a shock.