The Bailout Bill Will Pass Tomorrow…
…I 100% guarantee it. It’s a five-star lock. Of course, it’s the Senate that’s voting tomorrow, and not the House, and the Senate would have passed this bill, or even the original Paulson plan, at any time. Furthermore, the bill can’t even originate in the Senate, so they’re pulling some shenanigans to vote first, apparently in an effort to restore momentum.
The Senate plans to vote on the $700 billion bank rescue plan Wednesday evening – two days after the House failed to pass it.
The bill adds new provisions – including raising the FDIC insurance cap to $250,000 from $100,000 – and will be attached to an existing revenue bill that the House also rejected Monday, according to several Democratic leadership aides.
…Because the bill must originate in the House, the Senate is attaching the rescue plan to a bill that deals with renewable energy tax incentives. This would allow the Senate to vote before the House.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that House leaders are discussing ideas offered by other lawmakers about how to modify the bill defeated on Monday. “House Democrats remain strongly committed to a comprehensive bill that stabilizes the financial markets, restores confidence, and protects taxpayers,” she said.
Proponents of the bailout needn’t get too excited (nor opponents too depressed) at the inevitable onslaught of media coverage of the passage of this bill. I don’t know any reason why the House will feel obligated to vote on this version, and I’m not convinced at all they stand ready to pass ANY version.
The bailout’s supporters continue to be their own worst enemies with their shrill overkill. For example, during the surprise Monday rejection of the bailout, House members were harangued to change their votes with the admonishment that the stock market was tanking. Well, the market lost 7%, and gained back 4% on the very next day. Furthermore, it stands a good chance of gaining ground tomorrow on the Senate news.
What that means, of course, is that by tying support to a transient (and essentially meaningless, in terms of the bailout) one-day movement in the stock market, the supporters have given opponents a perfect opportunity to say, “See? The sky didn’t fall after all”…and to once again vote no.
I put the bailout’s chance of passing the House at no better than 40%, and I think that’s a little on the high side, frankly (though, for what it’s worth, I’m far more pessimistic than the Intrade market, which has the bailout’s passage chances at 85% – by October 31st(!))…
Glaringly obvious is the complete lack of leadership from the members of our government. Who will step forth to make the case for or against the bailout, that will rally the members of his or her party, and those of the other side of the aisle, to do what is best for the people of the United States? So far the answer is no one. I am not surprised but certainly am disappointed. It is natural for politicians to act as they are given what is at stake politically, but a leader is able to rise above that, to act contrary to their perceived self-interest, to convince others to follow. This failure is, to me, the saddest fact of this whole sad mess.
I would like to point out that the increase in the FDIC coverage is basically meaningless. At this point, the FDIC has something like $43 billion backing up $3.5-4.3 TRILLION in assets. If banks truly began to fail in large numbers, one should hope that theirs is the first one.
This bill is completely a RIPOFF for the american people who are suffering, asking them to add an additional amount of 10,000 per family in a time when they cant even afford normal expenses. It is a public shame to give this to wall street and banks and corporations who created the mess. They will take that money and STREAM ALL JOBS OVERSEAS where it is cheap instead of building American Workers. It would take only half of this amount, approx, 250 billion, to bail out all the americans going into forclosure and also provide good training and jobs for americans that will build up our economy, help us build centers in America to service the world. LETS STOP BUSINESS AS USUAL, we are TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN DEBT, even IRAQ is billions in profit, we are a poor third world country, eventually, antoher country will take out out in economy where we already lost and finally in war, just a simple push will kill amrica and ….GOODBYE AMERICA.
STOP BUSINESS AS USUAL, KILL THIS BILL AND KILL SENDING BILLIONS OVERSEAS, CREATE JOBS FOR AMERICA, CREATE ENERGY FOR AMERICA……………………………………….KILL THIS BILL or it will KILL US !!!!!
And McCain is lock-stepping in line with the rest of them.
DO NOT PASS THE BAILOUT BILL! Let the Market crash – prices of gas, food and housing will drop. It will affect markets overseas (China, India, UK), let everyone start from scratch. Everything is overinflated.