Michael Scherer notes that our political system might be just as bankrupt as our financial system. (Add moral bankruptcy and the list is complete. Back to the subject...)
"Nearly every major political leader in America supported the $700 billion financial bailout bill. The President of the United States. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for president. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and the Senate. All of them said the same thing. Vote yes."Life ain't fair for an incumbent. Don't ever forget. Those "NAY" votes weren't about us.
"But a majority of those politicians anointed by the U.S. Constitution to reflect the will of the people voted no. This is a remarkable event, the culmination of a historic sense of betrayal that Americans have long felt for their representatives in Washington D.C. The nation's credit crisis exposed Monday a much deeper and more fundamental problem -- a political credibility crisis that now threatens to harm our nation further, should the markets freeze up and more companies begin to fail, as many experts predict."
(...)
An analysis by statistician Nate Silver, who runs FiveThirtyEight.com, made this clear. Of the 38 incumbent members of Congress from both parties who are considered vulnerable in the coming election, 30 voted against the bill (eight supported it). By contrast, members of Congress from relatively safe districts were evenly divided — 197 for it to 198 against it."What this showed more than anything else was that not even members of Congress can ignore a switchboard system of Capitol Hill that is so totally jammed," said Peter Sepp, a conservative opponent of the bill with the National Taxpayers Alliance.
It's all about THEM keeping THEIR jobs.
Term limit them.
Vote them OUT.
