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SENATOR SPENDS MORNING ON TV COMPLAINING ABOUT ECONOMY
Over the last three weeks, we have witnessed an unprecedented downward-spiraling financial crisis in which the federal government took over mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, gave an $85 billion emergency loan to insurance company AIG, injected $180 billion into the market, allowed the Lehman Brothers investment firm to go bankrupt, and oversee the start of a run on money-market mutual funds.
I’m not an economist by any means, but even I can see all of those added up are very, very, bad news. Adding to that looming financial bust, President Bush recently proposed a $700 billion bailout of failed financial institutions, which now must go before Congress where nearly everyone agrees it’s a bad idea.
Some, like Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have dropped everything — including a presidential campaign — to make sure that Congress takes the proper action.
Others, like Sen. Jim DeMint, have taken a different path, choosing instead to throw a temper tantrum and rail about what got us into this mess. DeMint today spent almost the entire morning doing television interviews with NBC, Bloomberg, CNN and FOX News using the same exact useless talking points and odd metaphors.
“The government cannot manage this much money effectively without inefficiencies and corruption,” DeMint said on NBC’s “Today” show. “The government broke it. I don’t trust them to fix it.”
While DeMint is right that the government caused this mess by enmeshing itself far too deeply in the free flow of the markets, his approach — including a rumored filibuster of any proposed legislation — is completely counterproductive.
In DeMint’s world everything is black and white and revolves around getting television time by acting like a child. But that does absolutely nothing to help the situation.
As Graham said today, “I’ve got one bad choice, which is for the government to get involved in this matter in a way that’s never been done before and that I’m not comfortable with, or I can pass the buck and have a catastrophic meltdown in the nation and throughout the world.”
Graham added, “As to those who say this is wrong for the government to get involved – we’ve got a problem here and now. This is not the time to be so ideological that we cannot fix the problem.”
He’s absolutely right. Sure, the government got us into this mess. And sure, there’s about a 95 percent chance the government will completely bungle the only opportunity it has to fix the problem.
But that’s all the more reason to focus and work together on coming up with a truly fiscal conservative approach that will repairing the damage rather than playing politics with a crisis that could destroy our economy.
I hope DeMint will get the message that this is not the time for rhetoric and harping on the past, it’s time to get things right. It would be a shame if he didn’t, because he’s really not that for off.
The “bail out” is not just banks, its any financial institution with bad debt.
“He’s absolutely right. Sure, the government got us into this mess. And sure, there’s about a 95 percent chance the government will completely bungle the only opportunity it has to fix the problem.”
Oh come on now! You’re SOOOOOO close to being right! Just go for it! All you have to do is drop that last 5% chance of naive magical hope and admit that the best hope we have is that the government DO NOTHING.
If there is no bailout then any bankrupted institutions will be handled by the FDIC. Main street americans would get their money back, and bad banks with bad managers and unwise investors would be put out. The bad securities would be flushed out in bankruptcy proceedings, and we’d be free to rebuild a new and better system.
Paulson’s plan TAKES money from main street americans and throws it at the bad securities, freeing bad banks, managers, and investors from the consequences of their actions.
Paulson’s whole rational is the system will collapse if we don’t save the banks. Well maybe a system that can so easily result in this sort of crisis SHOULD fail!
I wish the government felt this way about all crises.
For once, I agree with DeMint. I don’t think the government needs to bail us out.
Check this out:
http://www.daveramsey.com/tdrs/index.cfm/2008/9/23/Fix-the-bailout-with-mark-to-market?ictid=sptlt
There are other ways to fix it.
There’s something to be said for getting into the game instead of standing on the sidelines yelling, but I think this whole bailout is bad enough that it needs to be stopped now, before it can be rushed through. Legislation this far-reaching (and expensive) shouldn’t be passed in a rush; rushed legislation is generally pretty bad legislation. Let’s not fall into the “things are going bad, let’s do something quick” mentality; I think the “things are going bad, let’s take a moment and look very hard at the effects of legislation” mentality is better. Demint is serving the second mentality. As you say, there’s a 95% chance this sort of legislation will be very, very bad for our country.
Graham is full of it when he says the only choice is between a $700B check to the Treasury or doing nothing. There are plenty of things that could be done; abolishing the capital gains tax is one of them. Googling “alternatives to the bailout” gives 748,000 hits, so I’m sure someone has come up with something better than Bush’s proposal.
I’m frankly amazed that any conservative would back this plan.
I love that you equate standing by principles with “acting like a child”.
There is nothing conservative about this. Are you blinded by loyalty to your boy or just confused? I guess in your world everything is black and white and revolves around getting positive press for your politicians of choice.
p.s. The video is gone. You should have stolen it while you had the chance.
In case you can’t you tell, the video you posted was in the Russell Senate Building. This kind of defeats you argument that DeMint isn’t working to resolve this situation.
Also, if you are a conservative (and not just a RQ&A Kool-aid drinker), you would realize this bailout sucks and you should oppose it.
How about rather than giving away tons of our money and leaving our kids with mounds of debt we loan the money to these companies. Or require that these companies give over stock to taxpaying Americans for their retirement.
If we just give these companies money, what is to stop them from doing this again?
This bill is socialist. Anyone who supports it, supports socialistic ideals.
You can’t be a capitalist while things are going up, and a socialist on the way down.
And while you are at it, try this for a change:
Stop listening to what everybody you work with tells you, and start thinking for yourself.
Beth: The “mark to market ” change to Sarbanes-Oxley won’t work.
That guy’s argument is based on the assumption that the underlying real estate inside those securities is valuable and simple mass forclosure could turn all that into value greater than the bond price.
1. Lots of these properties are in ghost neighborhoods, have been sitting empty for years because it’s an attempted house flip that couldn’t be sold, have been vandalized by tenants who are upside-down in their loan, and/or have been ransacked for scrap.
2. Forclosure is a long, difficult, and expensive process. Forclosure will kick out the residents who do remain, exposing the house to all the things in problem #1. Forclosure properties will generally require a huge amount of maintence, pushing their value down further.
3. Forclosure requires a buyer to actually make any money. There aren’t many buyers with prices sinking the way they are, and if they do buy it won’t be for more than 22 cents on the dollar, where the “dollar” price is a bungalow for a million bucks.
Once again, if anyone, anywhere, government official, ivory tower economist, henry paulson, anyone says they can fix this all by waving a simple magic wand then don’t believe it.
Adam – You and Lindsey are so defeatist. You don’t have the guts to fight the slide into socialism that Bush, Paulson, Reid, and Pelosi have set us on. If you won’t fight, then sit down, shut up, and let Patriots like DeMint tell it like it is.
You presume, incorrectly, that Sen. DeMint is only sounding a klaxon but not actually trying to do anything. Sen. DeMint has been one of the few standing firm on conservative principle – not to mention common sense – and trying to keep Congress from making this crisis even worse!
The Administration’s proposal – currently being modified with the sage input from the Congressional leadership that but a week ago or so said they should adjourn because they don’t know what to do – is both wrong-headed and reckless. Placing $700B in the hands of the very same people who are responsible for the very crisis we’re in is akin to giving a case of whiskey to a destitute, unemployed alcoholic and expecting them to somehow become overnight a sober and responsible citizen!
Sen. DeMint appears to be one of the few in Washington that is trying to provide genuine leadership on this issue. I fear, however, that the inmates have overtaken the asylum that is Congress and we’ll end up with an economic recovery plan guaranteed to need its own bailout in the near future.
Wow, you should be embarrassed by this post. DeMint is one of the few with any sense up there. At least he’s willing to tell the truth…your girlfriend Lindsey does whatever McCain tells him to do.
Well I guess this is the new tune from DeMint – vs. his previous one about how regulation and oversight were evils that hampered the economy. Now we see what happens without it, DeMint is still pretty tick, but he’s just no sure why.
I don’t like the bailout plan either, and agree Paulson can’t be trusted in any way with numbers he throws out so flippantly (and so uninformed).
However, even if the bailout goes through, the real problem behind the credit crunch and so many of the other current ills our country has been facing economically is the national debt. The solution to that little diddy that DeMint and guys like Delay before him have constantly been offering is cutting taxes while we are at war…sounds too good to be true? Well probably because it is. The ‘extra revenue’ generated by the massive tax cuts Bush proposed, while also vastly increasing spending have (big surprise coming here) left us with MASSIVE DEBTS and DEFICITS! Seriously, who knew? The difference between our national debt now, and our debt in the 1950’s is that no foreign nations had a stake in it back then, now they ALREADY own 25% of it, and after this bailout will own even more. However, nimrods like DeMint who got us into this mess and don’t even realize it should stay the hell away from economics because the clearly understand nothing about it other than the electibility convenient argument that tax cuts are popular even when they are not economically advisable for the government or the national economy.
I’ve never particular liked DeMint, and have always been (and remain) a big fan of Sen. Graham. I do fault the Democrats the most for pushing the lending institutions to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them. But, as a die-hard Republican, I hate to say it, but I am very angry with Republicans for not preventing this. It’s good to see that McCain and others spoke out against the practice, but I want to know why they didn’t shout it from the rooftops and make a really big stink over it. They had a responsibility to do whatever it took to stop this once they realized there was a problem — i.e. filibuster, media blitz, whatever. The Democrats again showed their socialist ways and complete lack of understanding of financial issues, and for that they should be exposed. The Republicans, however, were savvy enough to know that this was potentially disastrous, and simply voiced their concerns and then backed away. That is unacceptable. I hope in the future they will stand up and make sure they are heard. I give kudos to DeMint for speaking out, for getting on the airwaves — for making sure that as many taxpayers as possible know the issues — and for making people pay attention. We obviously weren’t paying enough attention when they headed down the wrong road on this one . . . .Regardless of party affiliation, they all must be held accountable — they all own a piece of this mess.
[...] exactly the reason that individuals like Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. Jim DeMint are generally ineffective, even when they’re right about an issue. Let’s call it the [...]