Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Pellosing It

How to win friends & influence the opposition, on the cusp of the House vote on the bailout, courtesy of Speaker Nancy Pellosi.  From her speech on the House floor:

"Madam speaker, when was the last time anyone ever asked you for $700 billion? It’s a staggering figure. And many questions have arisen from that request. And we have been hearing, I think, a very informed debate on all sides — of — of this issue here today. I’m proud of the debate.

$700 billion. A staggering number. But only a part of the cost of the failed Bush economic policies to our country. Policies that were built on budget recklessness. When President Bush took office, he inherited President Clinton’s surpluses — four years in a row, budget surpluses, on a trajectory of $5.6 trillion in surplus. And with his reckless economic policies, within two years, he had turned that around.

And now eight years later, the foundation of that fiscal irresponsibility, combined with an anything goes economic policy, has taken us to where we are today. They claim to be free market advocates, when it’s really an anything goes mentality. No regulation, no supervision, no discipline. And if you fail, you will have a golden parachute, and the taxpayer will bail you out.

Those days are over. The party is over in that respect. Democrats believe in a free market. We know that it can create jobs, it can create wealth, it can create many good things in our economy. But in this case, in its unbridled form, as encouraged, supported, by the Republicans — some in the Republican Party, not all — it has created not jobs, not capital, it has created chaos."

Another party hack who should be offered early retirement.....  where were Pellosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership when it came time for oversight on the sub-prime mortgage lending debacle that started this mess?  Plenty of failures of leadership to go around on both sides....time to vote for this imperfect band-aid and then let's get on with the hard work of proper re-regulation of our financial markets.  Your thoughts??




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