I am very happy that the $700 Billion Wall Street bail-out bill was defeated yesterday! Not only am I pleased, but I am curious and, dare I say, overjoyed about the manner in which it all played out. What Michael Moore has called “The Corporate Crime of the Century” was halted yesterday (at least for a few days) by a vote of 228 to 205. It was historic - a bill supported by the President and the leaders of both parties went down in defeat. That just doesn’t happen.
As of Monday night, everyone I listened to thought the dang bill would pass. Those of us railing against how unjust it all was, and writing and calling our elected officials to voice that concern, seemed to be in the minority. Whatever questions Congress had about the contents of the initial bill – the dollar amount itself, the lack of oversight and accountability, the lack of a cap on executive salaries – they were supposedly being worked out so that the bill could be passed and “save our economy.”
The whole time, I’m sitting here thinking, “it’s not like we screwed this economy up over night - why is it so freakin’ urgent that we pass this bill in the next five minutes, without thinking it through and considering other options???” Perhaps more importantly, I could not conceive of bailing out the very people who fucked us all over to begin with. I’m sorry, but when your normal, average Joe can’t pay his bills he gets his house foreclosed upon, his car repossessed and/or he has to file for bankruptcy. We’re all now supposed to financially bail out those banks which would foreclose on me in a second if I couldn’t pay my home loan?
Hardly seems fair, does it?
If passed, this bill would result in every single American paying over $3,000 out of his/her own pocket to bail out banks and financial firms - companies who bought and sold and bought again loans which were never strong and never should have been granted in the first place. It is the fact that these loans are so weakly supported that got these institutions in trouble in the first place.
Why did this happen?
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