House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who heads a House of Representatives facing a 9% approval rating -- even lower than the President -- has blown it big time. She wasn't able to deliver 40% of her own party in a vote that she and others had tried to portray as the absolute most important vote in sixty years.
Whoops. And she did it by getting seriously bitchy, and turing the vote into a partisan catfight.
“It is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush Administration’s failed economic policies—policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system."
First, I am no fan of W's budgetary approach. But, let us keep in mind that Nancy Pelosi is not just a bitch, but a dumb bitch, for she forgets that all spending bills MUST originate in her own House of Representatives. That's right. If the House of Representatives wants to stop budgetary recklessness, they should stop their own crap first.
Second, on the "anything goes" mentality, let's keep in mind that it was DEMOCRAT appointees to Fannie Mae that drove that bus over the cliff. Franklin Raines -- OMB Chief under Billy Bob Clinton. Jim Johnson -- money man for Billy Bob Clinton. Jaimie Gorelick -- DOJ attorney and author of the famous "wall" that blocked cooperation between the CIA and the FBI that directly led to 9/11. All three of them were NOTORIOUSLY GUILTY of falsifying accounting statements in order to inflate their own bonuses.
Third, on the "no regulation", well, Nancy Nobrains needs to watch that. The US Congress passed some of the most far-reaching regulation in the history of the marketplace with Sarbanes-Oxley, which was supposed to cure this issue of falsifying accounting statements (hmm....). But, as I wrote here, SARBOX was a failure there. And, it also introduced the mark-to-market rule, which is currently driving this credit crisis. I believe Nancy Nobrains voted for SARBOX. The problem wasn't a lack of regulation or regulators -- it was a lack of goddamed common sense on the part of our political leaders who openly encouraged people to take out mortgages likey they were opening a new credit card.
Fourth, as for no discipline in the system, you need to look to your own house there, honeypants. You should be bitchslapping Barney "Pillow Biter" Frank, who -- in collusion with Chris "Countrywide VIP" Dodd -- explicitly worked to block and obstruct any oversight into the corruption that those Clintoncrats were perpetuating at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Of course, Nancy Nobrains went on. Presiding over the worst D'Alessandro disaster since Tommy III had to ask the Spiro Agnew to order the National Guard to Western High to keep the white crackers in Hamden during the '68 riots, she declared:
"I must recognize the outstanding leadership provided by Chairman Barney Frank, whose enormous intellectual and strategic abilities have never before been so urgently needed, or so widely admired."
Say what? Is the Dego off her Pasta? Barney "Pillow Biter" Frank is a key cause of this problem. His complete obstruction into investigating and dealing with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- even going so far just last year to proclaim "there are no problems" was a leading cause of this manufactured crisis.
Is this bitch crazy or what?
I am glad this bill went down in flames. Nancy Nobrains only needed to hold 218 Democrats out of her 235 total. She could afford to lose 17. She got 65 more votes from the GOP... but in the end SHE LOST 90 DEMOCRATS ON THIS BILL. That is a failure of CATASTROPHIC proportions for her leadership. It's a leadership failure. It's a political failure. It's abject failure.
And I am smiling. Because a majority of Congress, especially those in risky seats, voted against this bill. You know what that says? It says that even Congress doesn't believe the dark scenarios coming out of GoldmanSachs alumns Hank Paulson, Josh Bolten, and Ben Bernanke. It says that Congress can't justify a vote that bails out millionaires at the expense of the "forgotten man".
One of the lessons of a book called "The Forgotten Man" by Amity Schlaes is that the New Deal actually prolonged the Great Depression because of its war on business.
But this is different. This is a war on middle America by government bailing out businesses that were morally (and almost surely criminally) bankrupt. It is the socialization of risk and the privatization of profit, where the taxpayer -- "The Forgotten Man" -- holds all the responsibilities and few of the benefits. It is the implementation of Facism over freedom.
If Congress were smart -- and with Nancy Nobrains in charge, that is NOT a safe bet -- they would go back to the drawing table and start with incremental, but useful changes. Suspend the mark-to-market rules. Authorize the SEC to immediately audit companies financial statement to understand how intertwined these finacial instruments (like credit default swaps) are. Implement an insurance program, rather than an outright buyout. Start with the worst-case companies first, and work backwards. There is no reason to rush headlong into a problem we do not fully understand.
But that is wisdom beyond the years of a Speaker of the House who would rather be a bitch than a leader.