No Loss for Words

The bail out plan didn’t pass in the House of Representatives on Monday.  The votes cast were bi-partisan in that both Democrats and Republicans voted “aye” in support of the legislation.  At the same time, both Democrats and Republicans voted “nay” as well.

In the newspaper it said that the House Democrats had a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with the House Republicans that the R’s would deliver 100 yes votes.  The D’s wanted to make sure that the blame would be shared by both parties if the deal turned out to be a bad deal.  I don’t disagree with them.  Since the R’s failed to deliver the 100 yes votes, the D’s are blaming the R’s for the bill going down.

The majority party in both houses of the Congress is Democratic.  They had the votes in their own party caucus to pass the legislation, if the rank and file members thought it was the best they could do, but they couldn’t convince their own members this was the best deal possible.  The vote failed, the government is in crisis.

I doubt that anyone is wildly excited about the details in the failed legislation.  Everyone is counting on the smart guys coming up with the best deal possible before the whole thing crashes.  My question to all the folks who voted no is this.  “If you were not comfortable with the deal on the table, what specific changes would make you happy?”

The President, the Treasury Secretary and all the Congressional leadership folks spent a lot of time putting this deal together.  That means both D’s and R’s were at the table offering their two cents worth.  So what is so bad about this deal?

Apparently, the telephone calls to the elected officials are heavily opposing the deal.  That means the voters are pressuring their Representative to vote one way and their party leaders are pressuring them to vote the other.  Isn’t that a conundrum for the politicians?

I still want to hear specifics from the elected officials on both sides if this issue.  If they liked the deal, what parts did they like?  If they didn’t like the deal, what parts didn’t they like?  Eventually, these characters are going to have to step up and offer their own ideas, aren’t they?  Maybe we should wonder why we voted for any of them if they can’t tell us specifics.  The solution for this crisis will be painful for us citizens.  I am not interested in letting any of these yahoos off the hook.  I want specifics.

If they voted “yea” or “nay”, they should be required to defend their vote.  I want to hear it from both sides!  Don’t you all want to as well?

Posted on September 30, 2008 at 12:10 pm in Political commentary, Snohomish County Political Commentary   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL