The bailout impasse…

Why am I not surprised that the congress has been in a stalemate situation again – this time on the bailout bill. This was, after all, proclaimed to be a “The Sky Is Falling” moment in our history, only to be greeted by a “Wait a Minute Here” response in Congress. In this case there are certainly good arguments to be made for a thorough examination of what is being proposed. After all, $700 Billion isn’t something to be lightly thrown at any problem.

Both Main Street Americans and many in Congress agree that taxpayers shouldn’t bail out the greedy on Wall Street; however, Congressional republicans don’t want to see their wealthy contributors getting dinged in the process, so they are against holding down the outrageous payouts to wall Street CEO’s who bail out. The Congressional Republicans also appear to be against the American taxpayers getting a share of the businesses that are bailed out in return, citing concerns about interfering with normal free-trade commerce. I’d be more concerned that whatever governmental body is eventually created to sell off these “assets” would just screw it up as they always seem to do.

This is certainly a situation that is ripe for a successful “throw the bums out” campaign; except, we’d have to throw just about everybody who’s currently in Washington out and start over. While that is an appealing thought, it is impractical; so, we’ll have to leave a few bums there. The hard part would be figuring out who to leave; although, that would surely be a shorter list than whom to keep.

So, as we wait and watch for a solution (will there be white smoke rising from the capitol dome chimney?) to the crisis, we can only contemplate a better answer than we’ve had so far about where all this money is supposed to come from. We all know the answer to that, don’t we?