House Republicans Start To Get Religion On Bailout
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Bush, Economy, Legislation, Republicans“This bill offends my principles but I’m going to vote for this bill in order to preserve my principles… to preserve [the free enterprise system]. This is a Herbert Hoover moment.. he made mistakes during the Great Depression… Let’s not make those mistakes… If we fail to do the right thing, heaven help us—if we fail to pass this I fear the worst is yet to come.”
- Paul Ryan (R-WI) on the floor today.
This is the same Paul Ryan who was against the bailout a few days ago and led the House revolt that McCain gave credence to. Well, that is until he eventually backed away from the House Republicans.
So what happened?
Well, note that Ryan says the bill will “preserve [the free enterprise] system.” There’s really no other way to read that than Ryan has realized that the free market has failed in this instance and the government needs to save it.
What’s more, while he says the bill “offends” his principles, he probably also now understands that the vast majority of these mortgages are actually really good investments and the taxpayers could ultimately benefit quite a bit if we can buy a bunch of these perfectly good mortgages for 40 to 50 cents on the dollar.
In the end, he was probably just scared $#!+less that he and 99 other Republican House members would be blamed for the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression. Because I don’t think his invocation of Herbert Hoover was on accident.
This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 and is filed under Bush, Economy, Legislation, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Or that the government F*’d up for 10 years by underwriting sub-prime mortgages through GSE’s, and threatening lawsuits to banks who wanted to give home loans in more stable housing markets. Fannie and Freddie were selling frozen sh*t painted to look like gold nuggets, while Barney Frank and Chis Dodd were saying, “don’t worry, the government has your back…why don’t you slap a AAA rating on that crap.”
Enough of this “free-market doesn’t work and Bush wanted to deregulate” meme. In fact, since JG likes to throw the word “liar” around so much, let me say, enough of this lie. The government created this problem, and now we may have no choice but have the government step in and try to fix it.
September 29th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Jim, there are only so many of these comments I can under before I must protest.
It’s called ‘market failure’. Look it up.
September 29th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
heh. “endure”
September 29th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Early this morning—September 29th 2008—the papers reported that the 110-page bill goes to the House of Representatives for vote. Later on in the morning the House said NO to the massive bailout dollars.
When the $700b ‘solution’ was initially suggested my first impression was irritation, rage and annoyance. But in the past week or so, reading and talking about it, my feelings were somewhat reversed and I mellowed and simmered down. I came to the conclusion that this actually could lubricate the financial wheels and stimulate the economy. True, at the taxpayers’ expense, but has anyone a better suggestion without hurting our pocketbooks too much? The damage is done and there is no way back into history to put it right, but at least this will buy the bad mortgages held by many financial institutions and sold, hopefully, for a profit, at the same time allowing the institutions to start over healthier and wiser than before, and also, hopefully under the scrutinizing eyes of the feds. This is an exceptional situation that needs immediate attention and it should be on everyone’s priority list. I am not a Bush supporter, but I must admit, this bailout is a calculated risk and sounds logical.
Another alternative to this bailout may be: instead of taxpayers paying into it, what about Uncle Sam paying the taxpayers in the form of some reduced taxes? What I mean is to relieve us of some taxes, such as capital gain when we sell our homes; an incentive for the seller—I don’t know, just a thought.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
[...] http://donklephant.com/2008/09/29/house-republicans-start-to-get-religion-on-bailout/ [...]
September 30th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
[...] Remember, it was Paul Ryan (R-WI) who said the following just yesterday… [...]
September 30th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
People can change their minds, nothing wrong with that.
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