Bailout Fallout
So now what?
If you believe the mainstream media, the world is ending. If you believe the Wall Street Analysts (who, remember, stand to benefit from the bailout), we ignorant voters have poisoned our representatives minds and are causing a financial meltdown. If you believe the Messiah, then you believe that somehow raising FDIC account limits will fix the problem. If you believe McCain, then you believe that there really isn’t a problem.
The politicians are taking a couple of days off after all the hard work of the past several. They will reconvene Thursday with the goal of coming up with something a little more palatable than the boondoggle that was voted down yesterday. Needless to say, this negotiation will be filled with partisan bickering and the usual Washington rancor.
And, perhaps, this is where the problem lies – the fact that partisan bickering and Washington rancor is now the norm. Some have called it a loss of faith (a great article with which I wholeheartedly agree), others blame it on a loss of politcal credibility. Either way, the people of America, at least in this instance, had no faith in the plan put forth by our President and his Treasury Secretary and supported by the leaders of both parties in Congress.
This didn’t over the last eight years (as Democrats would have you believe) or over the last two years (as Republicans would have you believe). This problem has been brewing for years, and it is hard to say when it started. All I know is this: the last President that I felt really good about for any length of time was Ronald Reagan. After President Reagan, we had George Bush and his “read my lips” lies, President Clinton and his “read her lips” lies, and George W. Bush (to whom the mainstream media never gave a chance) and his reversion to socialist economics. At the same time, we have been through scandal after scandal in both houses of Congress and at all levels of government. We the people are tired of it!
Or are we? Re-election rates to the Senate are staggering, around 90% in most years (as high as 96% in 2004), with only a few years under 75% in recent history. Re-election rates to the House of Representatives are even more staggering, approaching 100% in most cycles. In fact, only once in the past 30 years has less than 90% of Congressmen been re-elected. This decade, the rate is 97%; that means about 420 out of the 435 House members get re-elected. Nothing is changing this year, as most analysts project only 2 senate seats as close races and only 16 seats in the House as close races (and only 34 more considered close enough to even analyze!)
So, if we don’t trust these folks to make major financial decisions for the country, why do we keep re-electing them? Perhaps its our fault?