The vote on the bailout was disastrous, as leadership, those connected to leadership and those retiring voted for the legislation, but rank-and-file members, on both sides of the House, voted against the bill.
Having a vote like this so close to the election is influenced heavily by politics and a fear of losing a cushy Congressional job. Republicans and Democrats in soft seats (those seats that lean toward the other party, or are a toss-up/target seat) voted against the bill. In their minds, they didn’t want to endanger their re-election for this vote. This says a lot about the leaderships’ lack of convincing.
Polling is slowly coming in on the subject, but the breakdown is clear. Those of moderate to higher incomes are solidly supporting the legislation because their investments are directly affected, while those of lower means are opposed to the bailout seeing virtually no connection to a collapsing economic system.
There is also the problem of perception. The liberal voters don’t want the bailout because they view it as “corporate welfare.” Conservative voters oppose the legislation because they abhor such deep government intervention.
But, all agree (in varying degrees) – the economy is in trouble and the government has to do something. The question is how bad does it have to get for everyone to get on the same page.
How bad is bad?
Posted by Tyler Harber on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 4:25 PM
The vote on the bailout was disastrous, as leadership, those connected to leadership and those retiring voted for the legislation, but rank-and-file members, on both sides of the House, voted against the bill.
Having a vote like this so close to the election is influenced heavily by politics and a fear of losing a cushy Congressional job. Republicans and Democrats in soft seats (those seats that lean toward the other party, or are a toss-up/target seat) voted against the bill. In their minds, they didn’t want to endanger their re-election for this vote. This says a lot about the leaderships’ lack of convincing.
Polling is slowly coming in on the subject, but the breakdown is clear. Those of moderate to higher incomes are solidly supporting the legislation because their investments are directly affected, while those of lower means are opposed to the bailout seeing virtually no connection to a collapsing economic system.
There is also the problem of perception. The liberal voters don’t want the bailout because they view it as “corporate welfare.” Conservative voters oppose the legislation because they abhor such deep government intervention.
But, all agree (in varying degrees) – the economy is in trouble and the government has to do something. The question is how bad does it have to get for everyone to get on the same page.