With the Senate getting ready to take up the bailout bill this morning, Congressional leaders are talking about changing the package just enough to make sure it passes when it makes it back to the House of Representatives:
Prodded by a wave of angry calls from constituents, congressional leaders dialed back partisan bickering over the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan yesterday and advanced modest changes to the legislation in an effort to win over House Republican holdouts.
Leaders of the Senate, where most members have indicated support for the plan, said they would seek a vote on a revised rescue package tonight that would include a one-year increase in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. caps for bank and credit union accounts, extensions of numerous business tax breaks that have expired and a fix to the alternative minimum tax for individual taxpayers.
The FDIC and tax provisions could make the bill more appealing to House Republicans, but they could also prove unpalatable to a coalition of conservative Democrats who have long opposed the tax changes. The Senate banking committee’s chairman, Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who helped negotiate the revised package, expressed confidence that the revisions would yield a majority of House votes.
(…)
A senior House Republican adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about private strategy, said the addition of the FDIC cap increase and the tax credits — without any corresponding tax increases — could have “substantial appeal” in that caucus. Boehner was consulted by Senate leaders and gave his approval, the aide said.
Increasing the FDIC insurance limits seems like a good idea generally, but it’s effect would be purely psychological and not really directed to the fears supposedly motivating the credit crunch that the bailout’s proponents tells us we need to fear:
The FDIC provision, which would raise the insurance cap for bank accounts to $250,000 from the current $100,000, was discussed during weekend negotiations in Pelosi’s office but was not included in the final package. But in what negotiators from both parties considered a critical breakthrough, the largest banking lobby in Washington embraced the idea. “We now see this as a way to help the package pass,” said Ed Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association.
While the move would result in banks paying higher fees on their insurance premiums, advocates say it would provide important assurances to small businesses that keep large sums of cash in bank accounts and are reeling from the credit crunch. “We are having an awful lot of people come into banks and ask questions,” Yingling said.
Frankly, along with the tax credits and AMT tweaks, this strikes me as little more than a bit of window dressing that will permit just enough House Republicans — and all that’s needed is for 11 of them to switch sides — to justify voting yes on the same bailout bill they voted against Monday afternoon.
Hardly a profile in courage if you ask me.
Dont be fooled…Revied bailout is just an:
EMPTY CALORIE…increases FDIC insurance from 100G max to 250G…but they dont have the money to do that…so would have to float and float and print and print more paper…which plunges dollar potency. Also talk about tax break for businesses (Daddy ,is that a synonym for corporation?” Yes, dead…in an election year it is!”)
Does anyone believe any of that crap?
also…
is chocked full of PORK…ya’ know…those earmarks they rant against…
they need pork rinds for about 13 House Reps to feed on, as the voter gets it shoved up there behinds.
THERE IS NO NEW DEAl…and dont believe the mainstream media plugging this as something “the voters seem open to now.” It is their attempt to soften voter outrage by saying…”If you are an outraged voter, you are now in the minority, so go home quietly.”
[...] I noted earlier today, the “revised” bailout bill is basically the same bill that the House rejected Monday [...]
I wouldn’t be surprised if the recent overhaul of bankruptcy legislation was designed for this economic situation; it turns human debtors into indentured servants. And that is necessary for the following reason:
The ’sssssss’ we are noticing with this credit crunch is just the leak before the big burst. This credit bubble has been inflated by a logorithmic base 10 scale of dollar creation.
The practice of using 90% of ‘real’ wealth for lending that can then be invested and re-deposited for recycling again and again for more and more credit probably has the same effect of simply printing more money. The difference between those two ways of creating wealth is that creating money by credit inflation redistributes wealth for the benefit of financiers. And printed money is real; not fake.
This credit bubble burst should, then, be creating a shortage of money. And the cure may be as simple as the government printing more money. The only problem with that scheme is that there would not be another bubble to burst to correct for over-inflation. Printed dollars don’t evaporate away like the ones the financiers are trying to sell taxpayers now.
And that is why those who have engineered this bubble need those new draconian bankruptcy laws. Only wage earners can turn this fake money into real wealth. And that is why the Bush administration and other supporters of the great bailout plan are adamantly against giving bankruptcy judges the right to restructure debt according to who is most responsible for making bad loans.
Bryant Arms