If we wanted a lesson in what’s wrong with Congress, the House of Representatives delivered it loud and clear in the initial rejection of the Wall Street bailout package. The country is getting the worst of both worlds – politicians who are almost impossible to defeat but who run from their own shadows. One of the advantages of a safe seat should be that a lawmaker will do the right thing, even when it’s unpopular. Not so with this Congress.
Take a look at the breakdown of the votes against the plan supported by the Bush administration and congressional leaders of both parties: Aside from a handful of members who are in tough re-election campaigns this November, the naysayers were conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. These are members who won their last elections by anywhere from 20- to 90-point margins.
But the warnings about dire consequences to the economy coming from the president, the speaker, the treasury secretary, the majority and minority leaders, the head of the Federal Reserve and, eventually, the nominees of the two political parties didn’t move them. Instead, they responded to the streams of e-mails flowing into their offices, many of them generated by conservative talk-radio hosts and liberal Internet bloggers.
No wonder the congressional approval rating rests so low. If George W. Bush has the highest disapproval rating in history (70 percent in the most recent ABC News poll), he can take some comfort from the fact that Congress scores even worse – 75 percent in a poll average by RealClearPolitics.com. Pandering to the angriest voices in the electorate doesn’t impress the majority of voters.
The president’s low ratings made his leadership on even this vital economic issue ineffectual. He can’t provide cover for Republicans who might have rallied round had Bush been in a stronger political position. But they don’t need that cover. Of the 228 members who voted against the plan, only 17 are in serious danger of losing their seats.
Opponents of the bailout protest their objections were substantive, not political. Liberals balked at the idea of rescuing the fat cats on Wall Street. And they have a point. In 2007, the five biggest firms paid themselves $39 billion in bonuses while their shareholders lost almost twice that much in declining stocks.
Conservatives cringe at the expansion of government and the power of the treasury secretary the bailout creates. And they have a point. Running the nation’s financial system out of Washington could be a risky enterprise indeed.
