Bailout Shot Down BY EVERYONE

Well, not by everyone, but a majority shot the bill down. What I find surprising is the amount of spin it is getting in the press. The spin goes something like this:

"Republicans in the House of Representatives shot down the Bailout legislation causing the largest single drop on Wallstreet to date. Could this result in a modern economic depression?"

I do not want to devalue the many folks who's investments are in flux at this moment as a result, but it is just shoddy reporting to blame the Republicans. Let me explain why.

On Monday the bill was voted down in the House of Reps: True enough.
Republicans voted it down: quite true to a large degree.
Democrats voted for the bill but were squashed: Not quite true.

In the House, 133 Republicans voted against the bill, leaving 65 Republicans voting "for" the bill. That's nearly one third of all of the Republicans in the House voting "for" the bill, for the record.

At the same time, in the House, 140 Democrats voted"for" the bill, while (surprisingly we don't hear about THIS in the press) 95 voted against it. Again, more than a third of the House Democrats voted the bill DOWN.

Let's do the the math another way to keep things honest here. In the House the Democrats have 235 members. At the same time, right now there are 198 Republicans in the House. That means that Democrats comprise a bit more than half of the House. Now, I hear a rumor going around that says that to pass a Bill successfully through the House you need a 2/3rds majority. Let's imagine that this was true and so, if 65 Republicans voted for the Bill along with all of the available democrats (235) then you still only have 65% of the House, right? So that must be why the Bill was shot down. Those horrible Republicans!? Wait? Oh, it ends up you only need a majority. Wait? If the President was about to veto the Bill then you would need a 2/3rds majority to overrule the veto (now, that is where that 2/3rds rule comes into play.)

So let's consider the real facts as a result of this number crunching. Since it was Bush who presented this legislation his administration wouldn't likely fight it to hard. So he wasn't to blame... hmm? And since it only takes a simple majority to vote the bill through the House, since the Democrats comprise a solid majority (4% more than is required) that means that even if all of the Republicans simply refused to vote it shouldn't change the outcome, so they aren't to blame... hmm? In fact 36 Democrats could have voted against it, and the bill could have still passed... double-hmmm?

So who is left to blame then? Democrats anyone?

When Obama talked about Iraq in the first presidential debate he said that the real question is, "Why are we in Iraq to begin with?" Later when discussing the economy he blamed McCain for voting in favor of deregulation. So let's take a tact from Obama's playbook and ask a few similar questions.

Why is wallstreet in the position it is in, to begin with?

Well, Obama would have you believe that it is the fault of McCain. But the fact is that under the Clinton administration, financial advisors Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin architected the deregulation of Wallstreet.... under Clinton. Let's watch the timeline a little bit.

So Bush comes into office and four years later the Democrates take both the House and tied it up in the Senate. So, in Congress, the Democrats are sitting as the "king" of the proverbial "hill" and have for the past four years. How did this happen? The 110th Congressional Democrats ran an unprecidented campaign for "change" and overturned more seated Republicans to take the majority. Does a campaign for change sound familiar?

So what has happened in the last four years then? Each Congress (this is the 110th Congress of the U.S.) gets a nickname and this Congress has been called the "do nothing" Congress. Wow? Really? Campaign for change, then do nothing. Wait don't they have a majority? That is enough to push bills through, right? What happened? Who cares if Republicans all voted against their bills, how didn't they seem to get the job done? Remember, they aren't known as the "the republicans shot us down" Congress. They are the "do nothing" congress.

The 110th Congress has worked less than any Congress on record. Talk about Falling asleep at the wheel. So, then if that were true, wouldn't we be all upset about that? Well, we are. Polls show that the 110th Congress has the lowest approval rating in HISTORY. To compare it to another poll that gets a lot of press, for quite some time now, the 110th Congress has lower approval rating than President Bush. Ouch! So, should we really be blaming Republicans? Equally as important, is McCain to blame as Obama asserted?

To bring this full circle, do you know any of the names of Obama's financial economic advisors? Here are two named you might now know: Mr Summers and Mr. Rubin. So if we are pointing fingers, Mr. Obama, who is to blame again?

To be fair, Mr. Obama decided on Sunday that we shouldn't care about why we are in this situation right now, but just rather focus on fixing it. Interesting that on Friday he wants to blame McCain and when the truth comes out about Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin, the Clinton Administration and his desire to take the advice of these same folks, now we should suddenly stop pointing fingers.

The voting in Congress is all about getting this bill right. Nobody wants to make the situation worse, so I am in favor of making smart decisions about getting this right. The bottom line is that Republicans and Democrats voted in favor of deregulating congress and it is politics at its worse to simply blameshift. I am in favor of working to fix stuff, but I am not in favor of the obvious revisions to history Obama is trying to sell to the American people.

Keep it real. Don't be hoodwinked.