People who know me know that I hate crisis. I prefer tons of prevention upfront to preclude uncomfortable eventualities in the aftermath. Yet, we spent this week watching Congress in crisis mode- with all its inefficiencies in resplendent display for all to see, and after all is said and done, nothing is done at all. The same people praising Congress for its quick “action” are the same people who excoriated FEMA after Katrina for not moving in more quickly to help the people but ignored the LA governor and New Orleans Mayor who did squat to preclude let alone alleviate the suffering of their people.
Just how big IS the crisis? Depending on where you read, anywhere from 90-98% of Americans are paying their mortgages, meaning that we’re getting our panties in a wad over some small fraction of the country that made poor fiduciary posturing for their own personal wealth. Bailing them out, the few, is not in the interest of the majority of Americans, who are by any report by and large meeting their financial obligations on every hand.
If it’s that big of a crisis, why did the Democrats allow the weekend to come without voting on anything in the House? They have more than sufficient votes along party lines to railroad anything through Congress without any Republican support. They even have the Bush Administration backing bailout bills, and yet they could not take the time to put forth a bill that was easy to understand and put changes into action quickly on the floor of the House for a vote. When there’s a crisis, people act; they don’t talk about acting. Obviously, it’s an opportunity for them to manipulate a situation under garb of a crisis to usurp more power from the people.
We do not need more laws. We need to enforce the ones we have. Freddy May and Fanny Mac and the whole kitten caboodle were not in correct application of accounting rules- they were cooking the books to earn their CEOs big bonuses, some of which are now ranking members of Obama’s staff. In fact before a congressional hearing in 2004, former Clinton OMB appointee and former Fanny/Freddy CEO Franklin Raines (who raked in 1.2 million in bonuses) referred to these subprime loans as “riskless”. Now they’re singing a different tune.
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