The Chicken Little Bailout

Congress is being asked to approve a $700 billion plan to bail out those financial firms that made bad loans to people who couldn't (or wouldn't) pay them back, leading to foreclosed homes and massive credit debt. Otherwise, we're told, the sky would fall.

Strange. That's what they told us would happen back in the fall of 2001, when Congress was inundated with bills intended to ramp up the nation's security in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Or when approval was needed to go to war with Iraq in the winter of 2003. Not a lot of thought was put into either of those, as we found to our horror.

The way things look now, in spite of all the wary debate going on in Washington and beyond, the bailout will almost certainly pass without much opposition. Because the Bush administration hasn't given Congress much choice. You either do this, they're saying, or risk a depression.

This economic crisis is not all President Bush's fault, though he has been a huge factor in where we are today (see: the war in Iraq). It's been a bipartisan effort dating back to the Reagan administration (with a brief blip when Clinton balanced the budget), leaving a legacy of government catering more to Wall Street than Main Street.

The proposed bailout would put a crimp into presidential candidates Barack Obama's and John McCain's promises of tax cuts, permanent or otherwise. One of them would have to face a massive deficit when they take office in January.

No matter how this turns out, Wall Street executive will get cushy severance packages totalling in the millions, and financially-strapped taxpayers will be stuck footing the bill without seeing much in return. Just like an old nursery rhyme, it's going to take all the king's horses and all the king's men and women to put this economy back together again.