This Is Such A Set-Up

When I saw that bipartisan press conference claiming that the contours of a deal has been reached, I noticed that the Republican representative from the Senate side was Bob Bennett, not the ranking member of the Banking Committee Richard Shelby. Well, sure enough, Shelby just showed up on MSNBC, and sure enough, he's absolutely opposed to the bill. He was waving around a piece of paper from top economists opposing the bailout, calling it a giveaway to the same Wall Street corporations that created the problem. He also said it bails out foreign banks, which I thought was taken out of the bill.

Shelby isn't wrong, not to my knowledge. As James K. Galbraith says today, the need for this bailout is extremely suspect. Certainly there are better ideas out there than the crappy Paulson plan. And in many ways, lawmakers and the Bush Administration are trying to fix a problem that doesn't have a fix - the housing market hasn't hit bottom, and it'll drag down the economy regardless (though a new Home Owners Loan Corp. would help).

But the politics of this are clear. Right after Dodd and co. announced a bipartisan deal, John Boehner said no dice. They are going to try to stick the Democrats alongside with Bush on this bailout.

I don't know if that will totally work. Pete Stark is calling B.S. on President Paulson's irresponsible talk about bank runs and depressions. Brad Sherman says his office calls are running 300 to 2 against. The results are the same across the country. I think a good portion of Democrats won't go along with this. But the Blue Dogs, those supposed stewards of fiscal responsibility, will, and they'll put Democrats in the situation of being on the side of the largest bank bailout in American history. At that point, the details will be irrelevant. This is Lucy with the football, and if the Democrats manage to blow this one they actually don't deserve to be a political party.

...the other option here is that House Republicans are holding off until McCain "convinces" them, showing how much of a post-partisan leader he is. That's a possibility, but anyone who votes for this piece of crap bill, absent some really enticing language, is in trouble in 2010.