Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Congress passed a worse bailout bill one week after rejecting the original. It passed after another $100 billion of pork was added. I am not a supporter of this bailout but I can understand why it was proposed--try to inject confidence by doing something. But if you voted against it in the first place why would you vote for it when the additions made it a worse bill? Some citizens may have changed their mind when they realized the effect of the crisis on their investments. Some people may have been faked out by the change of the word bailout to rescue. But isn't it the role of the Congressman to sort out the right or wrong of a bill regardless of political pressure at home? Some may have been persuaded by the pork going to his district and some may have been persuaded by the change in pressure from his constituents. But in any case, anyone who changed from a no to a yes vote should not have been a Congressman in the first place.

I thought the vp debate was poor. Gwen Iffle didn't do a good job because she was afraid that people are going to say she is biased toward Obama. She didn't ask any follow-up questions. This made it easy for Palin to say whatever she wanted without answering the question in the first place. With 3 days to prepare and no follow-ups to trip her, it is no wonder that Palin did all right. I don't think the Joe 6 pack comment helped her as most people are tired of the current Joe 6 pack in the White House. There was no change in the dynamic of the race as a result of this debate.

I had suggested couple of blogs ago that Obama and McCain should act like FDR and reassure the American people even though they had no good ideas to solve the crisis. FDR did not endorse Hoover's desperate program toward the end of Hoover's term. He knew that the people had no confidence in Hoover's programs. So he created his own program. With Obama in the lead I can see why he would not propose anything new on his own but keep on blaming Bush, just to try to run out the clock. McCain, however, should have tried FDR's approach which is to denounce the bailout and offer something radical of his own. By voting the same as Obama McCain has not distinguished himself. Instead of bailout he should call for creating a jobs program to repair the infrastructure as FDR did. So money would go to the states to create jobs instead of to the banks. This may not pass but it would at least show that McCain is a mavrick like he claims. Now he is no different than Obama but is tied to the Bush administration.