because their constituencies are against it and they are up for reelection.

hey, does anybody want to have a term limit discussion again?

WASHINGTON - The House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue package, ignoring urgent pleas from President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry.


Stocks plummeted on Wall Street even before the 228-205 vote to reject the bill was announced on the House floor.

When the critical vote was tallied, too few members of the House were willing to support the unpopular measure with elections just five weeks away. Ample no votes came from both the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/financial_meltdown

I don't know, I kind of feel like the American public simply had their voices heard. Everywhere I look or listen, Joe-average American's are against the bailout and have been calling their representatives to make their dissent clear. Since so many Representatives from both sides of the aisle voted nay, perhaps they actually simply did their jobs - REPRESENTED their people!

So maybe our economy will go down with a giant flushing sound, but if the trade-off is that America's representative governmental process followed the will of the people, I'm just more proud to be an American. For better or worse, WE made the decision, instead of having that descision made for us.

are they going to try again, to get something passed, before vacation?

I am sure they will...

why is a crippled economy an acceptable outcome for you?

Well I've already given up on Social Security being available when I retire. I am now kissing my 401(k) goodbye. At this point, I am very concerned that the money I have in FDIC insured deposits will even be there.

The stock market woes are straining the financial system, and from what I read, the FDIC did an "emergency" guaranty for Citi to save Wachovia. There are plenty of smaller regional banks that are teetering. Did any one's Disaster Recovery Plan cover this scenario?

All of these years of careful savings and living under my means, and I have no idea if it will have been worth it.

edited to add:
From my viewpoint, I don't think we are talking about job losses that we've seen before - i.e. the recessions of the early 90's and early 80's. I think we are talking about people losing their life's savings along with their job - and yes echoes of the Great Depression except that we have a h-ell of a lot more enemies than we did in the 1930's. Those enemies are also more dangerous than they were in the 1930's.

And I'm going to go out on a limb here and offer my observation that if Bush hadn't cried "Wolf" to get approval to invade Iraq, there would have been a lot more credibility when the real wolf is ready to pounce. I thought the invasion of Iraq was wrong on many levels, the two main ones being that I thought the WMD argument was false and we would be undertaking a HUGE commitment that could drain us.

I am disgusted beyond words.

Because a false, propped up economy may be worse. Because often (relatively) short term pain, even if accute, is necessary to heal. Because I think Americans are sick of greed, and believe consequences are necessary, even if they hurt. Because I believe Americans have enough ingenuity and resolve to see it through. But most of all, because most American's seem to be against the bailout, and we live under representative government... the will of the people.

Hopefully an America in which the voice of the people is ignored will never become an acceptable outcome for any of us.

Weren't we sick of all the greed during Enron, and the rest of the collapses at the turn of the century too?

to you (ie "relatively"), what is short term pain?

believe me, i understand your points about representative government, but i also don't trust the majority of americans to understand exactly/fully what the economics behind such a deal are.

For the first time in my life I am truly frightened at what could happen, and that is due, in no small part, to the fact that the bank where I currently have a couple of CD's (total amount is till under $100,000) is one of the teetering banks. It is also the bank where my husband's paycheck is deposited directly, but that may not matter because his company may close before the end of the year.

I don't think the FDIC has the reserves to Guaranty all of the insured deposits that are at-risk, so we may need far MORE than the $700 Billion to guaranty the deposits as I think we will soon witness a cascade of bank failures.

Either way you slice and dice it, the American Taxpayer IS on the hook for this mess. I think it was a choice of - do we pay a little now, or do we pay a LOT later.

As I read more and more on the subject, the issue of the derivatives market flushing down the toilet is a subject that even most financial experts do not want to contemplate.

Hopefully the difference between painful months and painful years. My husband lost his job last Friday in direct relation to the slow economy. Heck yeah, it is going to be painful for us for awhile! But, we will endure, I have no doubt. I truly feel our resolve is matched by countless families around the country. This resolve, IMHO, outweighs any lack of economic understanding you think we suffer from.

wow, even Dennis Kucinich was against the bailout bill, saying that it was sending America towards "casino socialism."

What does it say when a far lefty like Kucinich opposes the bill because of fears of socialism, and President Bush supports it?

This is crazy.

without a plan (that, btw, nobody wants to have to deal with but, guess what, we have to), we are looking at years.

After seeing how the FDIC has handled WaMu and Wachovia, I wonder if they didn't already put together a plan after the IndyMac failure?

It will be curious to see how quickly the FDIC will surgically cut the decaying institutions from the banking system in order to preserve what it can of the insured deposit base. Of course, this may mean that bank stocks will be toast for awhile as investors may seek to dump stocks and receive at least pennies on the dollar rather than nothing.

Either way, a bailout plan will be upon us, and taxpayers will be paying the tab in order to cover the FDIC and NCUA deposit insurance guaranty.

Gives a whole new perspective on borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

bless the house pubbies for showing the way!!!

Pelosi couldn't keep her troops in line, the democrats didn't need one pubbie vote, although they got quite a few

buyin, my gluts!!!