Роль МакКейна в истории с бэйлаутом:

Last night, the House Republican leadership held a press conference to discuss the economic bailout package, which they now support. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Roy Blunt, and Adam Putnam explain that the new package greatly reduces — but does not eliminate — taxpayer risk. It improves the original Paulson plan, and Boehner notes who is responsible for the House GOP even getting a seat at the table:

But I think I’ve made clear to many of you that if it were not for John McCain supporting me at the White House when I said whoa, whoa, time-out, they would have run over me like a freight train.

Before McCain arrived in Washington, the Senate and the House Democrats figured they could force the Paulson plan down the throats of House Republicans. Afterwards, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had no choice but to deal with Boehner and the conservatives, and making changes to the package to get their support. Also, Boehner announced that McCain has begun making calls to get Republican votes for this bill, which shouldn’t surprise too many who had listened to McCain over the weekend.

То есть МакКейн притормозил принятие закона в полностью демократическом виде и дал республиканцам возможность внести в него кое-какие поправки. В частности, за счет этих денег не будет финансироваться всякая дрянь вроде ACORN. С другой стороны, саму идею бэйлаута МакКейн поддержал и плотно поработал над тем, чтобы все-таки обеспечить ему поддержку House Republicans. Поэтому довольно много народу теперь о нем очень плохо думает.

Описание процесса:

Let’s be completely clear about what Congressional Democrats and Republicans did.

They started with a list of objections to the Paulson plan, and a list of unrelated legislative priorities. These included, among other things: punishing executives of failing financial firms; giving taxpayers a direct upside from the recovery of the financial system; making the bailout fully risk-free for taxpayers; giving Congress the opportunity to second-guess and modify the plan later; satisfying the demands of the AFL-CIO, which popped up with a laundry-list of extraneous items they’ve been trying to enact for years; allowing overextended homeowners to avoid foreclosure; and funding left-wing activist groups.

Then, in a marathon of acrimonious negotiations, Congress added some version of all of these things and more. Paulson and his negotiating team from Treasury were concerned above all that they retain the ability to execute the core of the original proposal. In case you’d forgotten, that was to borrow money from global investors to buy distressed mortgage securities, and either hold those to maturity or sell them at a profit.

So it appears that the Treasury negotiators were basically successful. As far as I can tell, the sausage makers kept in some version of almost all of their weird extras, but softened each one to the point that it would have little effect in the real world.

All Congress really wants is to be able to say they did all of these little things. Not that they did them in a way that will mean anything to anyone. And these meaningless extras will become the focus of the news reporting about the bailout.

This wasn’t an exercise in intelligent legislation. It was an exercise in butt-covering ahead of an election.

And everyone in Congress knows it, too. That’s why they’re all hanging their heads, saying that this was something they had to do, even though they all think it’s just dreadful.

Congress’s priority now will be to sell the bailout as a valiant response, lovingly written and carefully directed by our very own Dear Leader, Barack Obama, to a problem caused by eight years of evil Republicanism.

via pent_racoon

Интересная деталь:

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Нам, мол, просто была нужна цифра побольше и пострашнее!

По-моему, это полный абзац. Недаром кто-то из консервативных блоггеров писал в самом начале истории, что чувствует себя как при покупке подержанного автомобиля.

План Полсона не прошел в Палате представителей. Десять голосов не хватило. Распределение голосов: демократы - 141 за, 94 против, республиканцы - 66 за, 132 против. Криков радости со стороны тех, кто бился против законопроекта, пока не слышно; все, видимо, внимательно смотрят на график Доу-Джонса.

В качестве одной из причин, по которым республиканцы выступили в большинстве против, называют речь Пелоси: она, нуждаясь в голосах, догадалась еще раз попытаться свалить всю вину за кризис на республиканцев, чем, понятно, сильно их вдохновила.

Opponents said part of the reason for the opposition from Republicans was what they termed a partisan speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said one GOP source.

“Pelosi’s partisan speech has caused our members to go berserk and may cost us any remaining chance to pass the bill,” the source said.

Pelosi had said that Congress needed to pass the bill, even though it was an outgrowth of the “failed economic policies” of the last eight years.