Monday, September 29, 2008

Too bad it's an election year

I'm not going to assign blame for the bailout collapse. The whole thing is just so depressing. But let me make one point: as readers of this blog know, I've been agitating for entitlement reform for years. Unfortunately, politicians are caught between the "will of the people" and what's best for the country, often leading to paralysis. In the case of Social Security reform, everybody in Washington knows the system can't go on at its current rate, but nobody is willing to cut a popular program. So nothing happens.

In the case of the bailout bill, nobody in Washington wanted to bail out Wall Street (due to populist or conservative principles) even though they knew it was the right thing to do for the overall economic health of the country. So nothing happened.

I'm reminded of a quote by Winston Churchill: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

Extra – Christian Science Monitor: "Why the bailout bill went down"

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised and glad they killed the thing (for now), but this quote says it all.

Barney Frank:
“In the sphere of numerology, the number of Republicans who ignore what’s best for the country because of a [Pelosi] speech turns out to be exactly the number of Republicans we need to pass the vote.“

Anonymous said...

"In the case of the bailout bill, nobody in Washington wanted to bail out Wall Street (due to populist or conservative principles) even though they knew it was the right thing to do for the overall economic health of the country."

How could following conservative principles not be the right thing to do? Do you recommend we start voting for Democrats?

Anonymous said...

Breaking: possible coup underway in Zimbabwe.

Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg

Anonymous said...

I'll assign the blame for you.

Takes a while because there's so damn much.

skeneogden said...

The blame is multifaceted, however the willingness of the populace to continue electing representatives who don't have their best interests at heart should be at the head of the list.

We have no one to blame but ourselves for the muck we find ourselves mired in. I believe we are in for a painful two or three years, and that is with factoring in some luck.