We very nearly suffered through a meltdown that could have made the Depression look like prosperous times. Through a week of bailouts, high CEO payout stories and the dire prediction of the meltdown, something needed to be done. President Bush stepped up.
On Thursday, President Bush called a meeting with SEC Chair Christopher Cox, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke. They came up with a plan to attempt to stop this country from falling into a precarious financial situation. They developed a plan to stop that in its’ tracks.
While the two Presidential candidates jockeyed for position that would make them look better to voters, the President stood up and grabbed the bull by the horns. If it succeeds, he will be a hero. If it fails, he will be a goat. The success or failure of his efforts now lay in the hands of Congress.
Congress has failed for years. This trouble goes all the way back to the Jimmy Carter Presidency. They’ve put in laws that forced lending institutions to loan money to those that would not otherwise be eligible for loans. They’ve not done the proper oversight as is their charge.
In 2003 President Bush tried to end some of these tactics and laws that would bring about the very situation that we just ran into last week. Congress wouldn’t act. Last Thursday, President Bush had a choice. Call in his people to try to solve the problem or let the problem work itself out.
The President has just four months left in office. He could have put it off to the next President. If you watch the news, he’s already considered a failed administration by the liberal media. He could have done nothing and let it play out. It may have played out and worked itself out. Instead, President Bush didn’t take the chance of the country going down the economic drain. He put the country first and acted. I don't know that the solution is the correct one. I tend to think that it's not. Nationalizing the markets doesn't seem to be a correct answer. That's not the point of this however. The point is that the situation called for someone to stand up and present a plan and President Bush did so.
Now our fate is in the hands of Congress. Congress, who always adds their pet projects to bills that have nothing to do with the bill, are now being asked to deal with this situation and not politicize it with those pet projects. Already it’s begun. Congressman Barney Frank has called for a surtax on the rich blaming them for the situation we’re in.
President Bush had a moment that is similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were on the brink of a disaster and he stepped up to the plate and got the job done. Now it’s in the hands of Congress. Congress holds the purse strings. Not the President. Yet, President Bush stepped up and did Congress’ job which they’ve neglected for years, and now we’re back to hoping that Congress can step up and do as the President has done.
Can they do it? With the likes of Christopher Dodd, Kent Conrad, and Barney Frank who have received deals on their mortgages and are directly and indirectly responsible for this situation, it’s a scary thought. Congressman Rangel, who writes tax law, but didn’t realize he owed taxes on property. Again I ask. Can they do it?
Senator Harry Reid, the Majority Leader in the Senate who said that they didn’t know what to do so they left on Friday. It doesn’t look promising.
I hope that the people of each district take a very close look at their Representatives and Senators and ask themselves if they really trust the person in office and vote for the proper the person, not based on party, but based on whether they have the wherewithal to do what’s necessary when called upon.
I suspect that this will get taken care of, but then we’ll be subjected to the return to the blame game. The blame lies with Congress. Democrats and Republicans. Some are no longer in Congress. Some have been entrenched there for 20 years or longer. What is needed is a plan to get this money back to the people of this country that are bailing out this problem. The real problem with Congress will be their propensity to create new laws that will make things worse once they have this problem resolved. Assuming that they can put aside their hatred for each other and get this legislation done cleanly.
President Bush stepped up when needed as needed. Now we have to hope that Congress, contrary to their history, can do the same thing.
President Bush was the right man, at the right place as he was on September 11, 2001. Imagine if we had Al Gore as President on September 11, 2001. Now imagine if Barack Hussein Obama was President last Thursday. President Bush was the man to have there in both instances.
I welcome your comments.
Brett
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14 comments:
Good reading, The Demorats caused the meltdown
http://www.bloomberg.com/
apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=
aSKSoiNbnQY0
Lib, it started a little bit before. Try the Gramm-Leach-Billey act in 1999.
The problems actually started in 1977 and were piled on over the years by incompetent and greedy politicians. Lack of oversight. Improper regulation and outdated regulations.
Let me guess, I bet you're referring to the Community Reinvestment Act.
If that's the case, try again.
Try Slick Willy in 1992
Despite Bill Clinton's announcement that "the era of big government is over," it took the better part of his administration for him to push these initiatives through Congress. In 1999, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, always a good friend to Wall Street, finally brokered a deal between the administration and Congress that allowed banking deregulation to move forward. Shortly after the compromise was reached, Rubin took a top position at Citigroup, which went on to embark upon mergers that would have been rendered illegal under Glass-Steagall. As the New York Times put it, Rubin would be leading "what has become the first true American financial conglomerate since the Depression"—a conglomerate that could exist only because of legislation he had just shepherded through Congress.
Passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 was celebrated in a Wall Street Journal editorial as an end to "unfair" restrictions imposed on banks during the Great Depression, under the headline "Finally, 1929 Begins to Fade." But Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, writing in Mother Jones, warned that the legislation, which amounted to the "finance industry's deregulatory wish list," would "pave the way for a new round of record-shattering financial industry mergers, dangerously concentrating political and economic power." Mokhiber and Weissman also predicted that such mergers would eventually "create too-big-to-fail institutions that are someday likely to drain the public treasury as taxpayers bail out imperiled financial giants to protect the stability of the nation's banking system."
Enter Bear Stearns. In addition, the merging of commercial and investment banking helped enable high-risk mortgage lending to make its way into the mutual funds and 401Ks of millions of Americans in the form of mortgage-backed securities. "Diversifying bad debt just spreads the poison," as Frank said in his Boston speech. It also makes a falling housing market reverberate throughout the economy far more than it did even during the S&L collapse. Enter the subprime crisis. And welcome back, 1929.
Takin Nobama to school
Here
lib, you're blaming this on Clinton?
Come on.
Here's a link to Mother Jones. They compiled a timeline regarding all this. Stop complaining about the source, it's still a good link. :)
Where Credit Is Due: A Timeline of the Mortgage Crisis
Mother Jones is not a viable reference. I've seen their article. They are good at singling out Republicans but ignore the Democrats participation and don't even mention some events that led to this and I don't remember them mentioning Dodd or Frank in their article.
I believe they also mentioned the Contract with America and that reference was completely fabricated.
I used to only use Mother Jones for the bird cage, but the birds kept developing bowel obstructions which told me that Mother Jones wasn't even good enough for a bird to squat on.
Mother Jones is not a viable reference. I've seen their article. They are good at singling out Republicans but ignore the Democrats participation and don't even mention some events that led to this and I don't remember them mentioning Dodd or Frank in their article.
I believe they also mentioned the Contract with America and that reference was completely fabricated.
I used to only use Mother Jones for the bird cage, but the birds kept developing bowel obstructions which told me that Mother Jones wasn't even good enough for a bird to squat on.
Prove the time line wrong. Just because you say it's not a viable reference, doesn't make it so.
Mother Jones is were I got the post
Here
Watch this and then tell me whom is to blame.
Barney Frank
Lib, sorry, I must have spaced. What was you're latest post referring to?
Sorry, it's been a long day.
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