McCain... Wrecking a deal for political or patriotic reason?
darkcrow
Posts: 1,102
So I am sure by now everyone has read the arguments that McCain came into the meeting, sat quietly, did nothing and then try to wreck the consensus by putting forward an alternative plan that included suspending corp tax and pushing for more deregulation...
So is the guy just causing havok to try and help his poll numbers or does he actually think he is doing the right think....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/25/at-white-house-mccain-pla_n_129438.html
So is the guy just causing havok to try and help his poll numbers or does he actually think he is doing the right think....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/25/at-white-house-mccain-pla_n_129438.html
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i did hear abotu something on CNN that in reality in was teh house rep. who didn't like teh deal. they don't believe that the tax payers should be stuck with the bill. i tend to agree
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me."
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980)
Agreed.. .and insuring the bad loans rather than taking possession of them sounds like a better deal in the long run.
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Social awareness does not equal political activism!
5/23/2011- An utter embarrassment... ticketing failures too many to list.
1) There was never any deal for McCain to wreck. The House Repubs were NEVER on board with this thing.
2) Even so, if the Dems really wanted this thing passed, it would be IMPOSSIBLE for McCain or anyone else to "wreck" it. Last I checked, the Dems hold the advantages in both houses on congress. If they wanted this bill passed as is, it would pass in spite of republican opposition.
So why are we still sitting around with our thumb up our asses?
The Democrats don't want it to pass that way, because if it fails, they'd have to take all the blame. And of course, they can't have that. They want to use the Republicans for political cover, and the Republicans aren't having it.
If I could have one word with Chris Dodd, et al today, I would say this: "If the bailout bill you're pushing is so damned great, then just pass the damn thing already. You have the votes. You don't need a single Republican to support it. And if it's not so damned great, if there are serious problems with it as the House Republicans claim, then stop pushing it down our damn throats already."
Contrary to what Dodd and Reid would have you believe, it wasn't "presidential politics" that wrecked this non-existant deal last night. It was the same old congressional politics.
It was people bickering over who would get credit if the bailout worked, and who would get the blame if it didn't.
Which is why I am mad as hell watching the news today. We're in the midst of an economic Pearl Harbor, and these motherfuckers are playing the same old bullshit games.
I am so fucking sick of it.
I fear America is about to get what it deserves here.
for the least they could possibly do
God forbid the people in Congress want to reach a bipartisan agreement on something for a change! The people playing political bullshit are the republicans who won't commit to agreeing on anything! What exactly do they want? Noone knows...
If it wasn't true that they were close to an agreement before McCain showed up, why then were people on both sides indicating that a deal was near?
Time to hang it up McCain you worthless geezer
becuase it may have been a ploy by the folks that supported the bill to put pre-emptive pressure on those that were against it ... that if they came out AFTER the statement was made, those that oppose it would be put in the corner as people who don't care and only want to screw things up.
First, without the McCain Obama interests ... I mean, can we concentrate on the issue of the bail out for one minute?
This bill is going to spend $700B ... are we to believe we should trust Bush, and Paulsen at face value? I mean they are the ones that proposed the first 3 page bill they came in with, with this section 8 "no recourse" BS?
So, there were some provisions put in ... ok ... so, now you have an ammeded bill ... to spend $700B ...
I'm just saying, I don't mind a little contrarian view to this. I don't have an issue with the House Repubs raising a hand and stating "wait, there may be a better way." .... Good ... we shouldn't rush to spend this much money.
That said, from what I've heard about The House Repubs proposal is that they want to FURTHER deregulate, and cut (or possibly eliminate) capital gains taxes .... which, will allow Wall Street to start the money flowing again ..... well, that sounds a lot like the way we got in this mess ... what he hell are THEY thinking? I mean, they can say this plan isn't the public paying for this plan, but, cutting taxes IS the public playing for this plan ... just in getting less revenue, not increased spending. Same thing, the public will end up paying.
My take, if we go with the Dems/Senate Repubs/Paulsen plan ... we could actually MAKE money on that investment. The governmant has had bail outs before ... loans to GM, Mexico, etc ... where, the government made money ... from what I've heard, $700B is the outflow, but, there's no way we'll get zero back ... and indeed, we may actually gain money.
So, here we are ... debating the issues ... let them chat about it ... work through it ... I have no issues with that at all ... I think the Dems were guilty of rushing to a "Get it done" plan ... but, that was based on everyone screaming "the sky is falling" ... again, discussion on this plan is good ... seeing all these fucks on TV every 5 minutes is not.
Now ... Obama / McCain ...
to me, there was NO REASON for them to be there ... at all.
They could keep tabs from afar ... they can let their voices be heard through surrogates from the campaign trail ... they didn't need to "suspend their campaigns" only creating MORE panic ... and by being there ... all the fucking cameras, all the photo ops, and thus, all the damn posturing by BOTH sides.
So, in a sense, no ... I don't blame McCain for "wrecking the plan" the plan needed to be questioned. But I do blame McCain for stunting progress on getting this done by grandstanding, making a show of it all ....
"I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." --- Pedro Martinez
The Democrats' little temper tantrum yesterday had NOTHING to do with wanting a bipartisan agreement. Nothing.
No. 1 -- The bill, as constructed last night, would have been bipartisan had they passed it. The Republicans in the Senate were on board. It is only the House Republicans who were balking, because God forbid we take a moment to think about giving more money to the people who mismanaged it before.
What do they want?
Well, the showed up at the White House meeting with an alternate proposal, so I guess we could start there. Except the Democrats blew up at the mere mention of tweaking the bill and stormed out of the room.
But yeah, they're still REAL interested in being bipartisan.
To my knowledge, there was not a single House Republican who said anything of the sort, at any point, yesterday. They were against this from the get-go, which is why they spent their day drafting an alternate plan.
In fact, I didn't hear any Republican, period, say anything of the sort in the run-up to the White House meeting. I'll admit, I didn't take a survey of everything said by everybody, so I might have missed something.
But I definitely heard guys like HArry Reid and Chris Dodd prattling on about being close to an agreement ... so they could cut John McCain's legs out from under him. It seems pretty transparent to me.
If the deal passed, they could say, "Look, we did all this without McCain."
When it didn't, they moved on to the next line in the script: "See, John McCain screwed this all up."
When, in reality, it was screwed up before his plane ever touched down in Washington.
for the least they could possibly do
I've seen you criticize posters in other threads (fairly, in my opinion) about how they have been using the Democrats' story of the contentious White House meeting, where McCain muddled up the process with presidential politics, as being unfair, because they're taking the "partisan" side of it, accepting the Democratic leaderships' words as facts about what happened in the meeting.
But you're doing the exact same thing here with the Republican leadership, who are claiming that it was the Democrats who scuttled the bill. No one knows exactly what went on there, only what people are saying, and although you criticized liberals for toeing the partisan line you're doing the same thing here, it seems to me.
The truth is McCain went to Washington yesterday and realized he was out of his league and that he had no real solutions to solve this problem. He knows his bluff had been called. And he sat there like a lump of dog shit keeping dead silent all throughout his White House meeting yesterday morning...You know the one where Obama actually did his homework and contributed to the discussion by bringing forth his 5 points that needed to be included on the bill?
Of course as always...we now have all these right wing conservatives coming forth saying that it was the Democrats who botched the bill....yet I haven't heard a single one of them admitt or clarify as to what John McCain has actually done or suggested other than further DE-REGULATING...which is a complete idiocy given the proven causes of this economic collapse.
McCain obviously hasn't learned a fucking thing since he's been in Washington these last 2 days...I mean who's briefing him....Sarah Palin??
Good Lord Help Us All
I suppose this criticism is fair enough. Chalk it up to a bad day, I guess.
for the least they could possibly do
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/the-role-of-joh.html
for the least they could possibly do
Well, I for one have no problem with taking a step back and examining the best possible solution to this catastrophic mess. I agree that any time you are dealing with this kind of money, you need to be very careful about how you are spending it.
There is certainly political posturing going on with both sides, but McCain is sitting back and offering NO solutions, while everyone else appears to be at least attempting to reach some kind of workable compromise.
The House Republicans have the advantage of being able to sit back and oppose any bailout, understanding that it may go over well with the public who appear to be majorly opposed to the deal. On first look, their plan seems to be more of what got us into this trouble. I have seen opinions from several economists saying their version will not work.
I don't think this is fair. McCain is there to help broker a deal that would bring House Republicans into the fold. That's supposed to be his role.
If we are being fair here, Obama is offering no solutions, either. He's just rubber-stamping what the basic plan that the Bush Adminstration and Henry Paulson put out there. (Plus a nice little kickback for ACORN, but that's another story).
Which is fine. That might end up being the best of a batch of bad solutions.
But McCain wasn't brought in to come up with some novel solution. That wasn't the point. The republicans (and, if you believe some of the reports, some Democrats) asked him to come to Washington to help bridge the gap between the various factions.
Obviously, he hasn't done that yet, and might not have a hand in doing that at all.
And I suppose that would be a fair criticism. But the criticism that he didn't show up to the bargaining table with some great and novel idea that nobody else thought of is unfair, IMO.
I think I agree with you here. I think their hearts are in the right place, but there plan is probably impractical.
for the least they could possibly do
I can see your point here. I suppose neither pres. candidate has offered any substantially different plans than what are already being discussed by both sides.
I guess what it boils down to for me is that McCain once again made a rash, fly by the seat of your pants type of decision to "suspend his campaign" while Obama has been the steady voice of reason throughout.
This opinion is, I think, bolstered by the fact that McCain has already had to backtrack and restart his campaign only a day later, when it became obvious that he needed to participate in the debate.
I will agree McCain's move was probably impulsive, which has been a fair criticism of McCain since his first day on the job in the Senate.
for the least they could possibly do
Oh, please. No one was calling him away from the Presidential race to come back to Washington to lead the charge of reform and better solutions. The closest they came was Harry Reid hoping that he would agree to the bailout. He was not "summoned" in any way. It was a political move, plain and simple.
You haven't addressed the most important point, sleightofjeff. If this move was from McCain's heart, as you claim it was, then why is he debating tonight against Obama, after claiming two days ago that he would not do so unless a deal was reached? If he's truly putting country first, why would he care whether he was at the debate tonight or not? How do you explain this discrepancy? If you can't (and I'm doubting there is a good explanation), then it has to be said that this was a political move.
-McCain: I will not debate unless there is a deal on the table.
-Friday: There is no deal on the table, probably not one till the end of the weekend.
-Friday night: Despite his proclamation, McCain debates Obama.
Whiffs of politics to me. Obama called him on his bluff; there was nothing courageous about it.
I mean, I guess it depends on who you believe. Several reports say Henry Paulson reached out to McCain, saying he didn't see any way a bailout could pass without him.
Of course, what's ironic is that McCain showing up seems to have submarined Paulson's plan.
I understand your point of view, and it's certainly a reasonable one to have. My view is that McCain is just an impulsive guy ... he felt like going to Washington was right, so he did it without really thinking through all the consequences. That's the way he makes decisions ... from the gut.
And, I realize this isn't always a great quality to have in a president, fwiw.
My main belief is that, just knowing what I know about McCain, he really is a guy that seems to put his country first. As I mentioned on the other thread, you don't basically take a bullet in the back for your country in order to sell it out for personal gain down the road.
But that's just a personal belief, and admittedly, perhaps a naive one.
for the least they could possibly do
That's an awful lot of leeway to give Senator McCain, and awfully little leeway to grant Senator Obama. You criticize Senator Obama for every small possibility of using events for political gain, but you don't question Senator McCain for a blatant attempt to play politics. That doesn't seem to me to be giving a fair shake on Obama.
Where did you check, exactly?
Senate- 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, 2 independents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate
if you wouldve used your own link and scrolled down just a tiny bit further, it shows the dems are in the majority. the two independents (lieberman and bernie sanders) caucus with the dems. although lieberman pretty much stands with mccain now. so, maybe it is a draw....
Sleightofjeff was making it seem like if the Democrats wanted to, they could easily push this bailout legislation through both Houses. It's simply not true. This is also assuming that support and opposition to the bailout proposal is strictly along party lines, which is not the case. There are Republicans that support the bill and Democrats who oppose it, albeit for different reasons.
One question...I know to override a Presidential veto, the Congress needs a 2/3 majority, but when it comes to legislation passing through the first time, would a simple 51-49 do? (Or 50-50 with a tiebreaker by the VP?) Even then the Dems cannot pass this without bipartisan support, but it's still important to know.
oh....maybe it is... :rolleyes:
As far as I know, it can be a simple majority. The problem with this bill is that they have to make sure the President will sign it. Too bad they're dealing with that pesky oversight clause.
McCain says he cares about the people, but what he cares most about is himself and his career. He always wants it his way or the highway and hang 'em all if they don't agree.
Bush has been very strongly in favor of a bailout, so it seems that he'll sign it. Again, I think the point was that the claim was made that the Democrats can push through any legislation they want, so if a bailout's not happening it's their fault. Again, just not true.