The Bailout & Congressional Convenience
The near-term economic future of the United States and everyone in the country is being decided now by Congress as it works on the Administration’s proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout package. But the job has to be done, the whole convoluted and complicated package has to be written and passed by week’s end.
Why? Not because world markets require it be done in such haste. What brought markets back so strongly last week was not an actual transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars from the government to Wall Street, but the announcement that this would be done. No one expected it to be done immediately. Indeed, the process of doing so would take many months, probably years.
So why, if the expectation and execution of such a package need not be rushed, why is the planning for it being so rushed? The answer, of course, is that Congress wants to get out of town by the end of the week so its members can campaign for re-election.
So here’s the priority at work here. Not the economic well-being of three hundred million Americans. But the cushy jobs of a few hundred congressmen.
Adjournment trumping duty. No wonder the approval rating of Congress is on a par with that of a failed President.
Cartoon by Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com
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