Bush is currently trying to ram his $700 Billion give-away to Wall Street down the throat of Congress, the same way he rammed the Iraq war and the Patriot act. But as Electoral Vote puts it:
Even legislators who were easily cowed during the run-up to the Iraq war are beginning to show something that might, given enough time, possibly, eventually develop into something resembling a proto-spine.
I’d love to say that it is the Democrats who are finally growing some, but even Republican Congress members are resisting the bailout.
However (and this is a big however), one has to suspect that the reason Bush is trying to fast track this legislation is not because they want it to pass, but because they want Congress to not pass it. Most people (including economists) expect the financial situation to get worse, and assuming it does, then the Republicans will be able to say that they tried to fix the economy with the mother of all bailouts, but Congress (now controlled by Dems) didn’t do anything.
In other words, even in the middle of an economic crisis, it’s politics as usual.
Rachael Maddow has an interesting metaphor for the bailout: “your kids ate all the candy, and now we are out of candy so we need to give them more candy”:
