The most striking thing about today's failed bailout vote is the realization (helped along by this) that there is not a single prominent person or institution left in America that a majority of Americans trust (except maybe Oprah). This has been building at least since Vietnam and Watergate, and there are a thousand real and perceived outrages that people can point to that led to that collapse of trust, but here we are.
Here, you had the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, both presidential candidates, Fed Chairman, Secretary of the Treasury, the Wall Street Journal, the liberal MSM, Senate leaders, Warren Buffett, all saying essentially that either we pass this bill or begin a new Great Depression (or, as our eloquent President put it, in probably his last contribution to Bartlett's, "this sucker could go down"). And the fucking bill still fails (at least for now).
To be sure, we might yet avoid the Great Depression - there are still bullets that can be fired by the Fed and the FDIC to stop the imminent financial panic. But what happens the next time there is a truly major national problem that must be solved and can't be dodged the way we dodge solving all our big problems? Just for example, within five years this nation will probably have to decide whether to go to war with Iran. Does anyone have any confidence that any of our leaders will rise to the occasion and make a decision that more than 50.00000000001% of Americans will support?
I hope the Democrats at least are happy, as they cleverly engineered this vote to leave House Republicans holding the bag for today's no vote and basically assure Obama of victory. I'll let Karl Rove explain how they did this. But even granted the Democrats' despicable partisanship, what sort of legislation do these allegedly free-market House Republicans (most of whom did nothing to stop Fannie/Freddie or the buildup of the gigantic credit bubble that led to this crisis) think will be enacted if the stock market drops 33%, the commercial paper market freezes up, and thousands of businesses can't make their month-end payroll? Hint: President Obama is unlikely to propose capital-gains tax cuts! House Republicans' refusal to bend over for this bailout bill could be setting the stage not just for the new Depression, but for America's final transition to a socialist economy. The decomposing corpse of Western Europe might be our future.
I hope they all know what they're doing.
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