Amazingly Congress, when faced with the simple task of taking what could be world-changing action to rescue the American economy, has once again elected to punt. There are entirely too many punchlines to this story to even pick one as the grand prize winner. The Democrats are saying the Republicans couldn’t even rally enough of their troops between the President, their Presidential candidate, and the minority leadership. The Dems, of course couldn’t rally a simple majority which only they possess.
Meanwhile the Republican leadership is citing Nancy Pelosi’s fairly partisan speech on the floor as the reason several Republicans voted to defeat the bailout. It could be interesting if we look back on this as the event that lit the defining spark of the greatest economic failure in history. I would love to see one of these folks telling their grandkids about voting no for no other reason aside from being mildly dissed by the speaker of the house.
The penultimate joke in all this is – when faced with even greater urgency than before today’s vote – Congress has opted to return to session Thursday. In my feeble, paean world we work nonstop on important deadlines, yet looking back I can’t say any of my so-called ‘important’ work ever came close to this.
If anyone is still confused regarding that 9% approval rating for Congress, their answer will be stamped across the pocketbooks of every one of us before things turn around.
We call these folks our elected leaders. As it stands, many have proven today that only one of those two words truly applies.