Why are House Republicans opposing the bailout?

It seems that House Republicans are the main group opposed to the proposed financial bailout bill. Why are they being obstructionists? Don’t they understand the severity of the crisis?

One might logically assume that House Republicans, who for the most part represent the more conservative elements of the GOP, are opposed in principle to any government intervention. Actually, that does not seem to be the case. The alternative plan the House GOP is proposing would if anything involve *more* regulation of the financial sector. Rather, their main concern seems to be the government’s purchase of mortgage debt from the troubled Wall Street firms, which is the centerpiece of the main bailout proposal.

There are two potential problems with this. First, if the financial firms couldn’t handle all that bad debt, how is the government going to handle it? Treasury Secretary Paulson’s plan assumes that over time, these debt assets will rise in value as the market heals, and can then be sold for a profit. What nobody seems to want to remember is that the reason the debt is bad is that the borrowers are either already in default or at risk of defaulting. Who wants to take over a loan that won’t be repaid? How do you sell that for a profit?

The second problem is what to do with those profits if they actually come into being. You would assume that the  money would go to defray the public debt we are creating by borrowing the money to pay for the bailout, right? Nyet, comrade. The Democrat-drafted bill under discussion would cut out 20% of the profits and give them away through a government program called the Housing Trust Fund. The recipients? Left-wing activists groups such as ACORN and La Raza, which spend as much time championing political causes as they do helping anyone find housing.

So in fact, although it seems like the House Republicans are playing politics with the economy, the Democrats are too – they’re just better at hiding it, with the help of their friends in the news media who choose not to look too closely at the details.

That said, I’m not sure the GOP plan, which would not involve the government purchasing the bad debts, goes far enough in addressing the problem, either. Further compromise is needed.

WashPost has a good article explaining the difference between the two proposals:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092500268.html?hpid=topnews

Details on the Housing Trust Fund/ACORN/LA Raza connection: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/26/the-democratic-acorn-bailout/

The politician who has gained most from this week’s events is…

Here’s a hint: It won’t make any difference who wins tonight’s debate, if it happens.

The political figure who comes out of this week as the biggest winner is…Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Consider the following points:

• While normally US sanctions would prevent him from setting foot on US territory, because the UN is meeting in New York, this avowed enemy of America gets to live it up in New York City for a week with full diplomatic immunity.
• As he has in the past, Ahmadinejad gets to slander the US and Israel before the whole world from the UN podium at length  with absolutely no repercussions.
• Ahmadinejad’s government openly gave the international community the symbolic finger over the issue of its nuclear program, refusing to cooperate and making a mockery of the sham “negotiations” it has been pretending to conduct while moving full speed ahead in its drive to build a bomb.
• Ahmadinejad was a featured guest on Larry King, where Larry was deferential almost to the point of fellating the Middle Eastern dictator.
• Ahmadinejad spent a couple of hours having his feet kissed by members of the American “peace movement”, including the co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink. (There is no Iranian “peace movement” because Iran jails and tortures dissidents.) Meanwhile, Sarah Palin was barred from a protest rally against Ahmadinejad when national and local Democrats refused to participate if she was allowed to attend, which would have attracted much more media attention to the rally.
• Back at home, the Iranian regime has just released a new book full of cartoons and essays denying and making fun of the Holocaust, to help indoctrinate a new generation of anti-Semites in the Muslim world.
• Ahmadinejad has enoyed the rare treat of being asked by Western reporters to comment on the US financial crisis, which he gleefully portrayed as the beginning of America’s ultimate downfall. Never mind that this is the man who has almost single-handedly ruined Iran’s own economy despite record oil prices.

I am still mulling over this financial bailout, but one argument in favor of doing something would be that the longer this crisis drags out, the more time our nation’s enemies such as Ahmadinejad have to frolic unchallenged on the world stage.