Defeat the Senate Bill in the House

[update, October 3, 2008 - McCain and House Republicans emerged as conservative heroes when they improved the Paulson Wall Street Bailout, and, despite the pork the Senate included, it improved a bit more with the AMT change. But I still opposes the bill because I don't think we need to commit so much taxpayer money to increasing the national debt; suspect that we are in for a year or two of a hard time no matter what we do; and suspect the bill will only loosen credit and relieve the crisis for a very short time.

And this morning we see an example of why and how:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, alarmed by the ongoing national financial crisis, warned Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson on Thursday that the state might need an emergency loan of as much as $7 billion from the federal government within weeks.

The warning comes as California is close to running out of cash to fund day-to-day government operations and is unable to access routine short-term loans that it typically relies on to remain solvent.

The above is why this bail-oou bill is PREMATURE action. Its why one can't put fires out before they start. Wouldn't want to run out of water keeping all building wet...[end update]

First they purged the socialist bail-out bill of many of its worst provisions. Then they saw over 100 Democrats cross the aisle and deliver a defeat to the feckless, impotent, identifier of unpatriotic Republicans (as 100 Dems follow them?) Speaker of the OutHouse of Representatives and Obama’s new politics of bring people together under Che’ Quevera and Karl Marx.

All week I praised McCain and the House Republicans’ efforts as damage control to prevent the assured hard time we have been in for a year and which will take more time to soften, from ballooning into the Hard Times define abandonment of the natural profits and losses, and lessons learned from same.

The vote shows that America is Palin’s center-right McCain conservative principled nation.

Ten days ago when the American people were first informed that the world as we know it would end if we didn’t anoint Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Master of the new American socialism Universe with a $700 Billion discretionary budget, I immediately determined that I would prefer a new world arise from the ashes of the old one if taxpayers were forced to:

a) Subsidize massive foreclosure rescues for gambling mortgagors as initially insisted upon by Speaker Pelosi and Barack Obama and/or

b) Subsidize left wing extremist groups, like democratic voter fraud indicted supporter of Obama, ACORN, fronting as public interest groups for “the oppressed”.

Before John McCain left the presidential campaign trail to engage the Paulson-Pelosi socialism juggernaut, it appeared likely that one or both of the above abominations would be included in the bill. The House Republicans were lonely voices of reason against the apparent consensus of all three other groups with a say: The House Democrat majority and Honorable Friends aka The Senate Democrat majority and the Senate Republican minority.

Many conservatives feared that McCain’s role would be to “maverick” the House Republicans into line so that the Democrats would have political cover should the bill bring on soup lines for millions for a decade (not that the Democrats wouldn’t mind a public that needed them for soup into perpetuity so long as the blame for same be assigned to 21st Century Hoover elephants that forgot).

Thank God we were wrong.

Instead, McCain empowered the leverage of the House GOP conservatives by, at once, not embracing the Paulson bill and by making public statements sympathetic to the House objections and ideas for improvement.

McCain understood that while Pelosi didn’t need one Republican vote to ram it thru in the lower house, he also understood that the Speaker’s desire for cover was a tool to use against her. But he also understood that the House GOP could not sit the whole matter out like a Nero amidst a burning Rome and that by working on the bill instead of fiddling, they stood a good chance of greatly improving the final product.

And boy did they improve the final bill. Not only did they prevent a massive, forced bailout of people (that too out loans they could not afford on homes they could not afford) gambling on homes to greatly appreciate so they could re-fi at an affordable rate; but they also got an “insurance’ provision added that reduces the exposure of taxpayers by many billions of dollars.

The July housing bill that “entitled” a massive number of ARM mortgage holder gamblers to re-negotiated mortgages in distress was bad enough. The democrats’ proposal for the Paulson panic prevention credit market artery de-clogger would have been a massive affront to the free market and 97% of homeowners that acted responsibly when purchasing homes they could afford.

Thanks to the House GOP and McCain, we learn, the following:

Democrats backed down from a controversial proposal to let bankruptcy judges alter the terms of mortgages, and from another that would have steered any ultimate government profits from the package to affordable-housing programs.

Not one thin dime for a bridge to ACORN for any squirrelly leftist, and as to help for homeowners:

Treasury will buy mortgage-backed securities, mortgages and other assets secured by residential real estate. The legislation requires Treasury to use its position as the investor in those loans and securities to “encourage the servicers of the underlying mortgages” to help minimize foreclosures.

All investors should, of course, “minimize” foreclosures. This language simply states the obvious in prudence. The Obama Democrats wanted the government to have non-gambling insured mortgagors to pay for gamblers’ homes and in essence buy them loyal democrat voters for life, and forever socialize the housing market.

I have spoken at length in two major economic columns about my reservations about the bill proper including my belief that a repeal of the “mark-to-market” accounting rule would mostly solve the clogged credit market arteries problem; endorsement of the House plan for other private sector remedies making government purchases unnecessary; repeal of Sarbanes-Oxley; and the smoking guns held by the Fannie Mae Democrats as the at fault parties in causing the crisis, so I will not repeat them.

My purpose here, is to laud our conservative leaders’ role in making this Castor oil more palatable.

Thank God for John McCain, John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Jim DeMint, et al, Republicans all.

America owes you its blessing.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
Legal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” – The Chief Justice
Race 4 2008
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson