Let’s see if I got this right. Wouldn’t it be nice if whenever you went into a casino or played the lottery, you didn’t have to worry if you lost, because Uncle
Sam would be ready to immediately issue you a check that would cover all of your losses? Wouldn’t it be even nicer if, in the event that you had some winnings,
you were able to avoid paying taxes on it by hiding it in tax shelters and by under-reporting with no worries or frets about government regulations or
accountability?  
Well, here we have it … the $700 Billion bail out of Wall Street represents nothing more than a blank check funded by you and me to cover those that have
gambled and speculated and “lost” on stocks and the housing market. I put “lost” in quotes because it is very hard for me to define $40 million golden parachutes
as a lost for those CEOs like Carla Fiorino of Hewlett Packard who got that amount after she was fired for her failure to effectively provide leadership to that
company.   
       I sat in complete amazement and outrage as I watched the hearings on Capitol Hill by Senator Chris Dodd, D-CT, and Chairman of the Commerce
Committee where testimony was given by Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve Bank and others trotted out by the Bush
Administration. These purveyors of doom and gloom were marched out by the Bush Administration to warn and admonish that if Congress did not take immediate
action to implement their recommendations for the $700 Billion bailout of those that have failed on Wall Street, that the collapse of the U.S. and world
economy was imminent.  
       These Republican appointees of the Bush Administration, who were not elected, whose actions were not regulated or scrutinized, and who in no way were
held accountable, are the ones responsible for putting our nation, and by extension, the entire world, into an economic free-fall. They have now stepped forward
to ask Congress and the American people to “trust us,” because they are the experts who know how to fix this situation. Those who have fought long and hard for
deregulation and for wheeling and dealing behind closed doors are now calling for regulation and transparency.  Those who have been grossly negligent in
managing their own offices and the taxpayer’s money are now telling us that they are competent and able to manage huge mega-corporations and investment
banks like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns and A.I.G.  
       How is it that an economic maelstrom as big as this one can rise up to the level of an international crisis in less than one week’s time without any one
sounding the alarm or raising concerns about this impending crisis?  At the very least, it raises some very serious concerns about who is/was minding the store.  
The doom and gloom tactics that they have used to push this economic agenda are no different than what the Bush Administration used to hoodwink and scare
the American people in believing that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; that Saddam posed a nuclear threat; that al Qaeda was in Iraq and that
danger was an imminent threat to the American people. These guys are demanding, with arm twisting and red alarm strategies, to have complete authority
without accountability to allocate a sum of the tax payer’s money that is twice the size of the amount of money that has been spent for the Iraq War. As the
economy tanks, it is socialism for the rich at the tax payers expense.
       Given the enormity of the ensuing financial crisis, a bipartisan effort was undertaken to pass a bailout bill that would keep the financial markets secure and
stable. Last Monday, the effort to get the legislation passed failed. It failed because 67 percent of the Republicans in the House voted against it. Sixty percent of
the Democrats supported the measure.  The Republican leadership, John Boehner, Roy Blunt and Paul Ryan ignored the calls of their leader, President George
Bush and Presidential candidate and leader of their party John McCain both of whom had strongly urged them to support the legislation.  Instead, to cover their
hides, they issued statements attributing their lack of support to partisan statements made at the introduction of the bill by Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Rep. Barney
Frank responded by saying that he was appalled that the Republicans would let sensitive egos to avoid supporting legislation that was necessary to thwart the
imminent crisis.
       The stakes are very high. Senator McCain had two of the most erratic weeks thus far in his campaign where he saw his numbers drop sharply in the
Presidential polls. He has witnessed a precipitous drop in the popularity of his Vice Presidential candidate, Governor Sara Palin and she has become the butt of
jokes on Saturday Night Live and the evening comedy shows. McCain bragged about cancelling his campaign and returning to Washington to bring the parties
together only to have his leadership repudiated by a majority of Republicans in the House when they refused to support the bill.  
       McCain’s long history, including the fact that he served for years as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, where he was a strong proponent of the
type of deregulation and the wheeling and dealing behind closed doors has put him in an awkward place.  His role in the infamous Keating Five scandal has
also resurfaced at an inopportune time. McCain’s notion that he will be a change agent for some problems that he has had a long-term role in creating has
undermined his credibility.   His call to fire someone that the President had no authority to fire (the Secretary of Commerce) was also futile and ill-advised.  
For Barack Obama, the focus on real issues and problems experienced directly by the American people has served to undermine the Republican strategy of
trying to win the presidency on “personality” or “social issues.” The American people are no longer interested in hearing talk about lipstick on a pig when their
401k and other pension funds are vanishing overnight.  
       In contrast to the stressed out, inconsistent and contradictory images and actions by demonstrated by McCain, Obama reflected a cool head and a
thoughtful and measured approach throughout this impending economic crisis. Obama was right to step back, converse with senior members of the Bush
Administration, the Democratic leadership, his team of high-level, accomplished and informed economic advisors waiting to see what the Bush Administration
was going to propose.  
       For the long-term, my fear for Obama is that even if he is able to win the presidency, and the recommendations for allocating the $700 billion bail-out are
funded, then the national treasury will have been effectively tapped out such that he will be put in an impossible position to bring any good to the nation.  Even
as you win, they set you up to lose.  It is reminiscent of the times when Black mayors like Coleman Young took over large cities only after they were in economic
ruin, decay and decline. Time will tell…
Steady as she sinks for the McCain Campaign
The $700 Billion bailout