It’s time for Democrats to wake up and tell Henry Paulson to go to hell. At first blush, Democrats in Congress, particularly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seemed quite ready to go along with Paulson’s request for a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street for three reasons: 1) Most of them don’t know shit about economics; 2) they’re terrified of being blamed if something goes wrong. And 3) they have a hard time saying “no” to the idea of government action.
But now it’s becoming increasingly clear that Paulson doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. His basic argument—his only argument—for the bailout is that he hates bailouts. So if Henry Paulson is in favor of this bailout it’s got to be necessary. Get it?
But Paul Krugman nails Paulson as a serious liar right here, noting Paulson’s testimony before Congress, when he claimed “I believe we need oversight. We need oversight,” when in fact the original legislation Paulson proposed specifically eliminated any and all oversight: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
Fortunately for the Democrats and the country, the stock market is not tanking, which means that opposition to Paulson’s plan will continue to grow. Republicans are walking away from it, and Pelosi is plenty smart enough to know better than to pass a Republican plan with Democratic votes.
