I, like 98% of Americans, don't have the credentials to adequately discuss how to fix the U.S. economy. I have one year of economics in grad school. But I do understand public policy and the great failure of this whole episode is that the U.S. government did not adequately sell this bailout to the American people. It deserved to go down in defeat even if it was the best plan to aid the struggling economy.
This bill died because House member who have to face voters in 5 weeks were getting calls 100-to-1 against this bailout and they were worried about their jobs.
The onus is on them, not us, even if the final bailout deal was the best thing for the economy right now. They made some significant improvements from the original plan. But this is a representative democracy and if Congress decides this is the best way to spend 700 billion worth of tax money, they need to sell the plan to the American people first. They need to take something that big to the American people. And they didn't do that, so the American people were angry and flooded their offices with calls. They put the plan online for only 24 hours. How many members of Congress actually read the 100 page bill in the 24 hours between the agreement being reached and the House vote? This isn't the way representative democracy is supposed to work. Now, it has been done this way before under Bush. They had the House pass the PATRIOT Act without even reading the 400+ page bill written before 9/11, with all of the implications it had to our civil liberties. There are plenty of documentaries about its passing you can find, they handed House members the bill about 20 minutes before the vote, the pages were still hot from the copy machine.
They passed the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq very quickly as well, without time to reflect the significant change in Foreign Policy it would bring, including thousands of deaths of U.S. soldiers, tens of thousands of injuries to U.S. soldiers, hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq, and millions of injured and displaced people in Iraq. They rushed the NIE before the Congress in Oct 2002, and many members only looked at the briefing. It was 'let's trust Bush,' and 'we have the first post-9/11 vote coming up' time.
They passed the FISA domestic spying bill when people flooded their offices as well. Unfortunately, the American people in general are more willing to give up freedoms because of terrorism and the Congressmen and women weren't sufficiently scared to stop the spying bill from passing. But this was just too much. The last straw after all of the terrible things that have taken place under the Bush administration. Bush has NO CREDIBILITY LEFT. His administration has NO CREDIBILITY LEFT. The Treasury secretary Hank Paulson ran Goldman Sachs, one of the heavyweights of Wall Street, just 2 years ago. Conflict of interest. No credibility. Ben Bernake is head of the Federal Reserve. Because of the internet, the American public knows the Federal Reserve is not a part of government, despite its name. People don't blindly trust the FED anymore. So Ben Bernanke and his predecessor Alan Greenspan have little credibility. The acclaimed most successful investor, Warren Buffet, not only advises Obama but also put 5 billion of Berkshire Hathaway money into Goldman Sachs. So after he puts all that money into Goldman, he tells Congress they must pass this Bailout or the economy will crash. But the bailout will also make Buffet billions. That's called conflict of interest. He has little credibility.
It is the responsibility of those in government to convince the American people that any plan or course of action is the best way to go. There has been no convincing, just shady 'trust us' proclamations of doom. Trotting out a lame duck president for 10 minutes is not a proper sell of a huge plan and they know it. Sorry, the American poeple do not blindly trust Bush, Cheney, Paulson, Bernanke, Greenspan, Pelosi, Boehner, Dodd, Gregg, Barney Frank, or Andy Putnam. They will have to do better than that.
I'll offer some advice. Maybe have multiple nights of nationally televised town halls with real American people and economists for and against various plans to speak. Have it argued out and the American people will pay attention, because it affects their money. That's if they really want to convince the American people and act as representatives. Take blocks of time, 8pm-10pm prime time. If it's so dire we may fall into another great depression, shut down prime time TV for two weeks.
I doubt they will do that, though. We'll see. I just don't think there is a backup plan. I think they hope that the stock market dropping will convince people to blindly trust their government again. Fat chance.
Keep up the pressure on them, keep calling! If you don't understand anything about the economy, most of us don't. Tell them what I said earlier. It's their job to convince US, the American people, and they haven't convinced us yet. We will never blindly trust the Bush administration, are they crazy? Tell them politely we need any plan sold to us.