We saw, and are seeing, what might seem at first glance to be an unusual coalition of dems and Goppers come together in support of the failed $700 billion Wall Street bailout package. Chimpy, Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, Boehner, Blunt, and many other Congresscritters we might not have expected to work for this thing. But suddenly they all came together, trying to scare us all into wetting our pants and supporting the bailout.

Note that I said that this coalition SEEMS unusual. As is almost always the case when dealing with official Washington these days, do just a little bit of scratching and you get to the truth of the matter. You’ll quickly find out that there is a reason that Congresscritters of supposedly divergent ideologies and priorities came together to fight for the Wall Street bailout.

The battle over the Bush administration’s plan to rescue the financial system took a sharp turn Monday when the House of Representatives voted down the bill by a sizable margin.

Though there was much talk about ideals and principles on the House floor, there’s another factor to consider as well.

The Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington nonprofit group that studies money and politics, reports that on average, lawmakers who voted in favor of the bailout bill have received 51 percent more in campaign contributions from sources in the finance, insurance and real estate industries — or FIRE industries, for short — over their congressional careers than those who opposed the emergency legislation.

The legislation is of vital interest to Wall Street firms and banks, many of which would like to use the program to offload noxious mortgage-related assets.

The FIRE industries — or, more specifically, individuals and political action committees associated with them — have been the top source of campaign contributions in federal politics, the group said, giving more than $2 billion to federal candidates and political parties since 1989.

This year, sources from the FIRE industries have been particularly busy, doling out millions to candidates that are facing tough reelections.

In this election cycle, the 140 House Democrats who voted for the bailout bill collected 78 percent more from the FIRE industries than the Democrats who opposed it. Over their careers, they collected 88 percent more, the data show.

On the Republican side, the gap was smaller. Republicans in the House that voted yes on the bailout bill got an average of 23 percent more in contributions from the FIRE industries in this election cycle than House Republicans who voted against it. In the long run, they got 53 percent more.

Of the 37 Democrats that sit on the House Financial Services Committee, 25 voted for the bill, including the committee chairman, Barney Frank of Massachusetts. He received nearly $800,000 this election cycle from sources in the FIRE industries.

Of the 33 Republicans on the committee, 8 voted for the bill.

The ranking Republican member of the committee, Spencer Bachus from Alabama, was among those who voted in favor. He has received $822,000 from the FIRE industries this election cycle and $3.7 million since 1989.

$2 BILLION in the last 20 years, weighted heavily towards those who were most inclined to vote to bail out Wall Street. Well I was just SHOCKED to learn this. Aren’t you?

It seems to me that one thing Wall Street could do immediately to shore up its shaky finances would be to stop paying off Congressional mouthpieces making such heavy political contributions to Congressional candidates. Can you imagine how much MORE money they must be throwing around in Statehouses? And if we bail them out, guess who will be making these payoffs contributions?

You will be, in spite of the insistence of some of our wingtard detractors, hard-pressed to go through either iteration of Reconstitution and find too many kind words for the dem Congressional or Senatorial “leadership.” We understood well before the 2006 election cycle that it wasn’t just the Goppers who needed to go. I don’t really see any great American revival as a possibility as long as the leadership roster of either party in Congress continues to be that of a bunch of complacent, paid-off toadies who will ALWAYS work to protect and enrich themselves, above all other things.

Quite frankly, if some move isn’t made by the Federal Government to calm things down, I fully expect that the rate of bank failures will accelerate. I wish we had a Federal Government that was a trustworthy entity, but…. the bulk of the American people distrust all three of our Branches for some pretty good reasons, and this example is but one of far too many to count as to WHY it is we don’t trust them. It is going to be real hard for this bunch to sell the American people on helping the greedy, even if it really is for the long-term betterment of the country. That’s what scares me now; the American people were quite right to reject the bailout bill that just went down in flames, but what if Congress actually gets it RIGHT? Who will be ready to believe them?

Read the fine print, and keep your ears open. Oh, and I thought I should mention the upcoming wingtard talking point. It seems that the inbred moron Grover Norquist is circulating a letter blaming Clinton for the deregulation that got us into this. Yes, Clinton signed off on it, but if he had been forced to rely on Democratic votes to do it, it never would have happened. The deregulation that is at the heart of the mess we’re in is a Clinton/Gingrich/Lott prduction, no matter how hard the ‘tard revisionists try to spin it any other way. Clinton was forced to rely on Gopper politicians, like the ever-reliable senior Senator from Arizona, to get deregulation through Washington.

Tags: bailout, boehner, financial crisis, lies, pelosi, republicans

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 12:55 am and is filed under The Republican Depression of 2008-?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.