So Much for Bipartisanship

The Bailout Bill didn't survive the House floor.

Instantly, Republicans blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's heavy-handed speech before the vote that blamed President Bush for everything.

Democrats instantly blamed Republicans for not supporting the bill enough. Of course, everyone knows that Democrats could pass the bill without a single Republican vote. So, there is more to it.

The key word on the lips of Democrats is that Republicans didn't "deliver" the necessary votes. Some Democrats have even specifically blamed John McCain for not "delivering".

The story seems to be that Democrats agreed to deliver 120 votes if Republicans would deliver 100. See, Democrats don't want to be on the hook for passing an unpopular bill and wanted to make sure there was enough "bipartisan" support to ensure they didn't lose control of Congress. House Republicans have vigorously rejected the bailout plan since it was first proposed. Some think the government doesn't have to do anything. Others think that the government should do something - just not this huge government bailout.

Of course, if Democrats really believed that the bailout was necessary to preserving the financial well-being of the country, shouldn't they have voted for the bill regardless of what voters think and regardless of bipartisan support? Maybe Democrats are more concerned about covering their own rear ends than passing unpopular but necessary legislation. This is the least accomplished Congress in the history of the country after all. And how can they blame McCain for not "delivering" the votes. Barack Obama supports the legislation, yet 95 Democrats voted against it. If that number had been 83, the bill would have passed.

Another interesting point - according to Republicans on the Hill, they never had more than 70 votes. Meaning, Nancy Pelosi knew the bill was going to fail, but called for a vote anyway. Why would she do that? Perhaps to blame Republicans for the failure?

This is not to say Republicans are blameless when it comes to partisan politics. Instead of blaming the demise of the bill on Pelosi, they should have simply said that the bill was too flawed and they are looking out for the tax payers. But instead, they partake in the same useless finger pointing.

And after the bill failed and the parties threw blame on each other, the Dow fell 450 points (it was down about 250 before the vote and ended up more than 700 down).

Maybe the only good thing is that the price of oil has dropped significantly. Donald Trump today said that this was the best thing that could come of Congress' inaction. He also seemed to indicate that continuing to do nothing will make oil prices keep falling - and that perhaps Congress would decide not to pass a bill to keep oil prices low. This might be an unintended benefit. And might also give the markets enough time to regulate themselves.

More to come.