Yeah, our country's current economic woes are all the fault of the entire Democratic party now. The Republicans certainly had nothing to do with it and were certainly trying to fix it! I mean, right guys? The majority party in power couldn't have possibly done anything about it because of the Democrats? Right?...

Venom Development wrote:
Remember the Republican's rule, if even a tiny iota of fault can be laid at the Democrats' feet, than the fault is completely the Democrats'

A tiny bit of fault for not regulating (or perhaps more accurately, being overly involved in regulating something that should have been run as a real business) when the Democrats staunchly opposed such regulation and were in control of Congress?

Each time Barney Frank says that Fannie/Freddie are the result of inexcusable inattention by Congress, recall that not only did he vociferously oppose such attention, but his party was in charge.

People are blaming Republicans for everything right now, in part because, polls show, they actually think Republicans have been running Congress for the last few years. But that's wrong, Democrats control both houses of Congress.

So if Republicans had controlled Congress, and had been the ones opposed to responsibly managing Freddie/Fannie, you would also say they were "a tiny iota" responsible?

I also recall you were the one who said deregulation was responsible for the current financial situation, so I think you'd be very interested to see who was responsible for that...

Deadron wrote:

Venom Development wrote:
Remember the Republican's rule, if even a tiny iota of fault can be laid at the Democrats' feet, than the fault is completely the Democrats'

A tiny bit of fault for not regulating (or perhaps more accurately, being overly involved in regulating something that should have been run as a real business) when the Democrats staunchly opposed such regulation and were in control of Congress?

Each time Barney Frank says that Fannie/Freddie are the result of inexcusable inattention by Congress, recall that not only did he vociferously oppose such attention, but his party was in charge.

People are blaming Republicans for everything right now, in part because, polls show, they actually think Republicans have been running Congress for the last few years. But that's wrong, Democrats control both houses of Congress.

The video was from 2004, stop using excuses, If its bad that Democrats didn't stop it in 2 years, then its bad that Republicans didn't stop it in 6.

Jmurph wrote:
Yeah, not following the logic here. The Dems should have done something in the last 2 but it's okay the Repubs didn't do anything in 6 when the problem was expanding? That is inane.

The Democrats insisted nothing be done, and we're not in a parliamentary democracy here -- you typically need some support from the other party to get things done. Note that Pelosi couldn't get the bailout bill passed yesterday even with her majority -- I assume everyone here is now blaming the Democrats for that and never thought of blaming the Republicans, right?

There is definitely blame to go around -- but I hope this video makes it amply clear that the simplistic idea of "Republicans == deregulation == bad and Democrats == responsible regulation == good" is simply not true.

When in the minority, Democrats insisted nothing was wrong and nothing should be done; when in the majority, Democrats did nothing.

Now the exact same people (Barney Frank, Chris Dodd) who insisted nothing should be done and then did nothing, are blaming Republicans for not doing anything.


Trying to blame one party is partisan foolishness.

I agree, which is why it's silly for people to blame the Republicans, especially when many of them (including McCain) were trying to do something and doing so against the wishes of the same high-profile Democrats now lambasting them. It's inane to have Barney Frank out saying that this is all because Republicans refused to regulate.

I'm not saying Republicans are blameless, I'm fighting against the ever-present idea, as presented by Obama, that this crisis is because Republicans and Bush have been shredding regulations, and they are solely to blame.

And let's be honest -- if this video had the parties reversed and the Republicans had been in power the last two years, how do you think the "deregulation killed us" crowd would be treating this info?

Jmurph wrote:
They are blaming Republicans hoping that no one figures out the Republicans actually called it right by bucking Bush and the Dems on the ridiculous handout, errr bailout, plan.

I'm trying to figure out what to think about the bailout loss...by instinct, I'm completely behind the idea that "emergency legislation" with sweeping clauses passed quickly and before anyone gets a chance to figure out what's really in the bill is a terrible idea.

On the other hand, Very Smart People like Megan McArdle and many others are saying, "No, this time things are so bad and so precarious that in fact passing a somewhat bad bill quickly is the responsible thing to do."

I'll keep processing this, and I imagine I might spout off about it here at some point...:)

I read earlier--and now I forget where--about how the SEC's mark-to-market accounting rules imposed on banks are worsening the problem overall, and how the bailout would actually stand a very good chance of making that a lot worse, causing even more problems than it intends to solve.

I'm of the opinion that some emergency legislation is probably in order and something needs to be done to ease the strain, but I'm not positive the bailout as originally proposed is aimed at the right targets. I don't think enough creative thinking has gone into this, and I don't trust most of Congress to do that thinking.