Crisitunity analyzes who flipped by caucus. Here are my stats. My original caucus breakout is here, though it's slightly different than Crisitunity's and based on this spreadsheet.
CBC 69.7% (30-8)
New Democrats 79.3% (46-12)
Blue Dogs 63.8% (30-17)
Progressive Caucus 69.4% (50-17)
Basically, this was a caucus wide vote, with New Democrats leading the way. The Blue Dogs have the most swing members who were allowed to vote 'no'. The Progressives and the CBC really flipped on this vote, probably because of heavy lobbying from Obama himself. Meanwhile, on the right, the Republican Study Committee stayed mostly against the bill. The GOP leadership is basically powerless at this point.
Obama pushed Congress hard on this. It's his bailout now, my friends. Let's hope it works.
Update: Here's Will Roger's delivering a Colbert-like Roast to bankers in 1924. Really funny, and timely.
OK, I know that's premature. And I place no weight at all on the fact that the Dow plunged after the vote.
But it is interesting that short-term Treasury yields are down - only 0.13% on one-month - suggesting that the flight to safety continues unabated. Against this, John Jansen reports some signs that money markets are unfreezing, slightly.
We'll learn more next week. But I have a prediction: well before January 20, Congress will be asked to vote on bailout 2.0.
I don't think this plan was ever meant to fix the credit crisis, otherwise it would have been packaged with tools to help homeowners. And the Democrats asked for 'concessions', which were openly mocked as irrelevant by Treasury officials in private. But at the end of the day, home values and an unregulated shadow banking system are at the core of this toxic mess.
So now the question is as follows - what does a progressive rescue package look like? Remember, it has to be piled on top of the authority the Treasury Secretary now has.
I'm sick, so I'm not going to blog as much as I normally would. I'm watching the House floor as members give speech after speech on behalf of this bailout bill; civil rights stalwarts like John Lewis are flipping from no to yes, and Roll Call is reporting there are as many as 15 new Republican yes votes.
As Dean Baker says, we are letting the bank robbers fix the bank's books. The bill they are voting on is here. Here's more.
At least five Democrats who opposed the bill announced plans to change
their vote - Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and
Rep. Hilda Solis of California.
"We have to restore trust in our banking institutions," Solis said.
Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Maryland, told reporters she would change her vote. And Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-New Jersey, said he would switch sides, too.
Donna Edwards, Elijah Cummings, and Hilda Solis are now yes votes. I guess the best you can say is that they see the writing on the wall, that fear is a powerful motivator. With no real progressive alternative and with such a small group of progressives willing to stand up on this, the pressure on these members went up. There are many other members I like and respect who voted yes, which just goes to show how much work we have to do.
... Donna should have voted no, and I'm not going to forget that. None of you should forget that either, and I don't mean to impugn her; this is simply a question of whether you think this is the right vote to take. Some of you do, some of you don't. She showed leadership around a progressive alternative, but ultimately, when that didn't come together, she voted with Pelosi, Frank, and Obama. Donna endorsed Obama and trusts him, as do many of you. She is deeply concerned that credit is shutting off for businesses in her district, and as most of the pro-bailout commenters think, she thinks doing something is necessary. I think this was a bad vote, and yes, I do feel betrayed. I think it's going to make the situation worse, but ultimately, it's her vote to make. I'm glad that Donna voted no on Monday and worked to present an alternative. When the pressure was on, she resisted, but ultimately, Donna trusted Barack Obama and the insiders' game. Bad choice. (Ok, see my post above - I got her statement, and she secured a promise from Obama and Pelosi to work to revise Bankruptcy regulations next year.)
I'll be heading out to the Seattle area in a week to blog more of Darcy's campaign, and one of the themes I'm going to be exploring is the collapse of Washington Mutual and its effect on the region. Somehow I don't think I'm going to have to look very far to find anger.
The bailout passed the Senate yesterday, with massive support from Obama. Dean Baker has one good way to think about this problem; if we need more funds, then the people who passed this bill need to resign. I don't think that'll happen for awhile, because the $700 billion is a revolving account and the government can play games with toxic assets. In fact, I think that this fund is mostly going to be used to buy toxic assets from Arabs and the Chinese, who own a lot of them, and who probably threatened to cut off their lending to us unless we took it off their hands at subsidized prices. We are now officially a banana republic, with foreigners able to lend at high rates and pillage our government and middle class when they don't get paid off. Get ready for years of no growth and nasty recessions, what is known in Japan as a 'bright Depression', and an unstable world where America is paralyzed. Obama pushed this through, it's his bill. He has handcuffed this country, and my guess is, that this is how he wants it.
The Palin-Biden debate is on deck. I know people are obsessed with Palin, mostly because she's a fascinating train wreck. I am too, but I haven't had a chance to really watch her in action. Tonight'll be interesting.
This is Byron Dorgan arguing against the Financial Modernization Act in 1999, the act that repealed much of Glass-Steagal and set the stage for today's crisis. He literally says, in 1999, that in ten years we'll look back and regret repealing the act. Incidentally, Dorgan was a 'no' vote on the bailout yesterday. On the other hand, he looks creepily like Donald Rumsfeld.
(video moved to extended entry because of auto-play--Chris)
This is Obama's bill. He whipped it, he made it his.
I assume he's willing to give up the 700 billion for the near dictatorial power over the US economy which is still embedded in the bill, power which he will wield through his Treasury Secretary. Or maybe, encouraged by his economic advisers, almost all of whom were amongst the architects and cheerleaders of the policies which made this crisis occur, he really believes that bailing out the rich with middle class money is how the country has to operate. After all, some people are important and some people aren't, and since the middle class can vote for him or for a man who has made himself into a national joke with Sarah Palin as the punchline, what are they going to do? Vote for John McCain, the laughingstock, who was also for the bill he was against, or some such?
If this bill doesn't work, or even if it does, it will have a huge cost and that cost will be born by the middle class. Even if you think it will work, not adding surcharges to make the rich pay for their own bailout is unconscionable.
Americans are being robbed, reverse Robin Hood style. Take money from ordinary folks, hand it directly to the rich. That's Obama's first real act as the presumptive President and as the Democratic party's de-facto leader.
MyDD and TPM are mocking Palin for opposing Roe versus Wade yet arguing that there is a right to privacy in the Constitution. Now, Palin's an ignorant lunatic. But how is this any different than any other politician who is willing to talk about the importance of privacy and then rush mindlessly to allow government wiretapping of our communications or tut-tut on teenage girls and abortion across state lines (all the while remaining 'pro-choice')? I'm sure Obama will talk about the importance of privacy, but the point is that this is all just code for Village-approved gibberish. Now yes, Palin is a rabid idiot. But that's not her problem. She's just not a Village approved rabid idiot.
Al Giordano has a wonderful post about a woman who registered over 1000 people by herself in Pennsylvania.
The Defenders of Wildlife are expanding their extremely effective ad against Palin. Animal cruelty is not ok, and it doesn't sell.
Obama made McCain very uncomfortable on the floor of the Senate today. By saying 'hello'. Super-Presidential, John.
"I've got a pretty long track record covering politics and news, so I'm not particularly worried that one-day blog chatter is going to destroy my reputation," Ifill said. "The proof is in the pudding. They can watch the debate tomorrow night and make their own decisions about whether or not I've done my job."
Her beef is with the McCain campaign, not chatter on blogs. This is a standard Village defense, getting mad at the people instead of the Republican elites who push this crap.
I don't think Obama's running a good campaign, but McCain is really trying to lose this. Republican operative Mike Murphy blogs:
As a former general in the GOP, I get a lot of emails from various operative types around the country. Many are old comrades from the forgotten wars of old Republican statewide campaigns. Unlike the well meaning but under-experienced six month wonders who seem to populate most of the GOP campaign apparat in Washington of late, these salty old pros have years of experience out in the field actually winning campaigns for our side, especially during the Republican glory years of the 90's when we held about every Governor's office in the country worth holding, as well as the House and Senate. Most are sidelined this time. And almost to a person they are dismayed by what they see as the stunning lack of competence in the McCain operation.
McCain aspires to be a dictator! What is with these Republican creepy statements about desiring authoritarian regimes?
For what it's worth, our colleague Sally Quinn said that McCain himself hasn't been a stranger on the circuit.
"I've sat next to him many times at dinner parties in Georgetown," Quinn said. "He's an absolutely delightful dinner partner."
Bill and Hillary Clinton did NOT receive the prestigious Sally Quinn endorsement. Fyi. And speaking of weird old men, check out this from Virginia Republican Senator and 1970s bad boy John Warner.
"From that beginning ... commenced the transformation of the Senate in many ways, from one lady to where today we have many," he announced. "As a matter of fact, we don't count them, because they have gotten into the full fabric of the Senate."
Warner added that although others might not notice the now fully assimilated womenfolk in the chamber, he still does. "Everybody is totally unconscious, except people like myself with a wandering eye," Warner said.
There are 16 women in the Senate, and 84 men. That's probably why Warner thinks women are fully assimilated, because there aren't very many of them.
Shadegg says he might support the bill. As the chair of the Republican Study Committee, which is known for its conservative tendencies, and by that I mean its bad faith meaningless dishonest hissyfits, this means that he'll carry water for Wall Street, as he always meant to do.
Ron Paul owns a lot of gold stocks. Don't say he never committed to being a gold bug vaguely segregationist weirdo.
Help out blogger Nate Willems, who is running for office in Iowa. Gotta back our own!
What are you reading? And what are you expecting from tonight's debate? Even though I can picture both people, I just can't imagine their interaction.
I don't think we can stop it this time, with Obama putting his thumb really aggressively on the scale to move it forward. This bill includes tax breaks for liquid coal, tar sands, solar energy, and wind. It has a one year adjustment to the Alternative Minimum tax (sorry, got this wrong in the first version of this post), an increased child tax credit, disaster relief assistance, and mental health parity.
Mr. Obama said the plan had been "misunderstood and, frankly, poorly communicated." For the second day in a row, he devoted nearly an entire speech to explaining the plan, casting it as essential to warding off a crisis from rippling through the economy. He barely mentioned Wall Street as he presented his argument for the plan, portraying it instead as a necessary challenge for all Americans.
"This is not a plan to just hand over $700 billion of your money to a few banks," Mr. Obama said. "If this is managed correctly, we will hopefully get most or all of our money back - we might even turn a profit on the government's investment - every penny of which will go directly back to you, the investor...
"Future generations will judge ours by how we respond to this test. Will they say that this was a time when America lost its way and its purpose? When we allowed our own petty differences and broken politics to plunge this country into a dark and painful recession?" Mr. Obama said, steadily drawing his audience into applause. "Or will they say that this was another one of those moments when America overcame? When we battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other's success?"
Lots of House leadership offices think that this deal is going to end up making taxpayers money. Even the Sweden model, which worked quite well, only brought back about half the amount deployed. The reality though is that Obama, McCain, and the business world are now overtly pressing this bill as the most important and patriotic endeavor possible, cast aside only out of mindless partisan allegiance. Here's the list of the business groups asking for this bailout to move forward.
I'll have an analysis of the DeFazio-Edwards plan out in a bit. Basically, it's not so much a legislative package as it is a series of recommendations for the executive branch that can be put into a piece of legislation (with a significant change to the FDIC). It's designed so that both Republican and Democratic members can say to constituents that they voted for a solution to the crisis when they vote no on the compromise put forward in the Senate. As it stands now, what matters is the final shape of what emerges. I know there's a lot of skepticism at the removal of mark-to-market accounting, and I share it, but that can be done at both the executive or legislative level - the SEC just issued new rules 'clarifying' that firms have more latitude in valuing assets with no liquid market (ie. toxic paper).
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that this is primary a shield against the compromise bailout coming to the House on Friday, and much of it depends on the Senate today and whether House members will find the Senate version acceptable. Dean Baker thinks the bailout as it is composed still nonsense, George Soros thinks the bailout will simply signal to creditors that America is going to inflate away its debt, while Krugman wants to see it go through. If this bailout goes through (which I now think it will), Krugman's credibility is why.
If elected, McCain would take office at age self, is that something with which you're entirely comfortable, somewhat comfortable, somewhat uncomfortable or entirely uncomfortable?
52-48
And the numbers have been moving the wrong way for McCain. Sam Stein has more on McCain's health issues. This has been covered up in a major way.
The Senate is moving forward on the bailout.
The text of the Senate bill is here.
Palin Bingo is being set up for the debate. And yes, she thinks dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time.
When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks."
Crisitunity has a great analysis of where the votes came from in the bailout.
One other interesting way to break this problem down is by region. Basically, the greater physical proximity you have to Wall Street (or to a lesser extent, another major metropolitan area), the likelier you were to vote for the bailout.
The South is having severe gasoline shortages that will last into mid-October. That's probably why Jim Martin is now in contention against Saxby Chambliss.
Conservatives are beginning to threaten Democratic big dollar donors with 'exposure' to their communities should they give to certain groups. Good. I'm thinking this can now be a badge of honor, if you haven't been 'exposed' by these guys you're not giving enough and you're not giving to the right groups.
Ok, the Senate is going to vote on a package, and Marc Ambinder thinks the House now has the votes. I do too. Paul Krugman is saying that "the true cost to taxpayers will probably be close to zero, and it would buy some time. But I'm not passionate about this. The real financial rescue still lies in the future, probably under the Obama administration. "
Let's hope that he's right and George Soros is wrong that this measure will "cost zero dollars". This is already a high leverage moment to push through a real bailout for the economy, which we've lost except for some tax breaks for renewable energy and an AMT fix (per the Senate version).
Here's their statement. I am leaving now for religious reasons, so anyone who wants to pick up this thread and add more details in the comments would be most welcome. Great progressives like Donna Edwards, Peter DeFazio, and Mazie Hirono are pushing this rescue plan. More information is here.
Meanwhile, Obama is demanding 'no vote' Democrats and Republicans "step up to the plate and do what's right for this country." Congratulations, all of us have just been called unpatriotic by Barack Obama for objecting to the bailout.
You guys are amazing. 43 donations in 12 hours is remarkable, not because of the number but because this site spends A LOT of time criticizing Democratic leaders, so turning around and investing your faith in Democratic politicians requires a dexterity of mind and a realistic optimism that we find quite rarely. We're going to shoot for 100 donations, because Better Democrats are the most important thing we can aim for this cycle. And as evidence, this is what having Better Democrats means.
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (OR-04), an outspoken critic of the Bush/Paulson bailout, along with Rep. Kaptur (OH-09), Rep. Scott (VA-03), Rep. Cummings (MD-07), Rep. Doggett (TX-25), Rep. Holt (NJ-12), Rep. Edwards (MD-04) and Rep. Hirono (HI-02), will introduce legislation today to address the failures in the financial markets. DeFazio believes that the Paulson/Bush proposal is based on a flawed premise: if the American taxpayers spend $700 billion to buy Wall Street's toxic assets - a plan pundits are calling "trash for cash" - it will create liquidity in our financial markets and will somehow trickle-down to Main Street.
DeFazio's plan is not in any way based on the Paulson/Bush plan. Instead of throwing taxpayer dollars at the program and crossing our fingers that the plan work, the measure will direct the Administration to take five simple steps, suggested by noted economist and former head of the FDIC, William Isaac, to re-regulate the markets and move America towards a healthy financial future.
The legislation will be available at the press conference.
Who: Rep. DeFazio, Rep. Kaptur (OH-09), Rep. Scott (VA-03), Rep. Cummings (MD-07), Rep. Doggett (TX-25), Rep. Holt (NJ-12), Rep. Edwards (MD-04) and Rep. Hirono (HI-02)
What: Press Conference to introduce legislation to fix financial markets
Where: House Radio and TV Gallery
When: 3 pm TODAY
I'm amending my position on a bailout from hell no to HELL YES. Here's a video from the night of Donna's victory, where she thanks OpenLeft for her victory.
We did this. We helped put Donna in office, and she's showing leadership. She's making us proud. And I know many of you gave to her and volunteered for her, and you should be very very proud. For those of you who didn't, you now have another chance to put people into office who will band together, as these progressives are doing, not when it is easy, but when the pressure is on, when it is hard. I know this is an uncertain time, nerves are raw, and we're playing with trillion dollar decisions. But this is when it is most important to stick to our values, to show that progressive leadership IS powerful and IS meaningful and that we will reward those who stand up.
Join us. Give a little today. And in 2009, we'll have a powerful caucus of Better Democrats in the House and the Senate. I can see it now, Donna Edwards, Darcy Burner, Alan Grayson, Jeff Merkley, Annette Taddeo, Sam Bennett, etc.
I don't really care that the market is up by around 300 points right now, but it's worth noting that the advocates of the bailout used the market drop yesterday as 'proof' the bailout was needed. David Cay Johnston has a great piece out why you should, bailout supporter or not, cheer for the vote yesterday.
As Johnston notes, there's a lot of arm-twisting going on right now, but the basic problem of a lack of legitimacy in our political leaders was stripped raw and revealed yesterday. Boehner, McCain, and the Republicans lied and fumbled everything over the last week, and people get that these Republicans are essentially no better in terms of values than a group of organized criminals. But it's also worth pointing how little the public cares that Obama is still pushing strongly for this bailout. And I'm not the only one noticing.
Meanwhile, the House leaders are AGAIN saying this will pass, the vote to be scheduled on Friday. Here's New Democrat Joe Crowley.
The key is to convince at least 12 more GOP Members to support the bill because "really it was the Republican side that came up short here. What do we have to do to convince the other side that this needs to be done and it needs to be done right away," Crowley said.
Not that it should surprise anyone, but Blue Dogs didn't exactly cover themselves with glory in this episode.
Cooper says it will come down to winning way more Republican votes than those that have stepped forward thus far. He says the jockeying for leadership of the Republican Study Committee is having an affect on the outcome. He says he expects about half of the Blue Dogs to sign on, and is trying to get more. But he says it won't pass by much (IF it passes) because everyone who can vote 'no' will. "There are no extra brave people," Cooper says. Why? "It's mainly political fear, the reaction back home. This is the most difficult time for people to be statesmen, 37 days before an election.
I know people are hurting right now. I'm hearing it from friends and family, and what little I have in the stock market has taken a bad hit as well. But this crisis didn't start today, it started a long time ago, and we're not the only people hurting. As soon as Bush took office, the hurt started. The Bush recession threw people into pain immediately, while families of soldiers in Iraq have felt immense pain for five years now. The poor and the bankrupt have been severely damaged since 2005, thrown into what is essentially a modern day debtors prison. Millions have gone without health care for years, thousands have died because of that gap. And I get more emails these days about job losses and unemployment than I've ever received, and that's not a subject this blog covers. Of course, there's also the pain that isn't felt because it is represented by things that didn't happen - the artists who couldn't make art because of the economy, the middle managers who never did start that business of their own because they couldn't get that loan or risk their family's health care, those who have not yet started families out of fear of the future, the millions of college graduates and non-graduates who left school since 2000 and have learned to stop dreaming.
This is a all a function of leadership, and politics. And every single one of us has felt it, to our core, for years. Every single one of us has made sacrifices - financial, emotional, physical, or social - because our leaders have demanded them or forced them on us. And we've all watched those sacrifices thrown away so these leaders could engage in corruption, nepotism, depravity, and unadulterated greed. That's reality. The future, though, need not continue along these lines.
Despite their shit-eating grins, Democrats nearly got rolled today, but a mixture of luck and bad faith from Republicans saved them. How do you know that the Wall Street types were trying to steal from us, other than the fact that they said that the refusal to hand over money was akin to a terrorist act? Treasury officials had a secret conference call with Wall Street executives. Unfortunately for them, some bloggers were on the call. The 'Treasury boys' on the call made it clear that "the tranching is a mere formality, and the Treasury boys as much as said so. They could take the $700 billion max as soon as the bill has passed." That was always obvious.
And they admitted that "the exec comp provisions sound like a joke, They DO NOT affect existing contracts, they affect only contracts entered into during the two years of the authority of this program and then affect only golden parachutes." Both of these provisions were 'concessions' sought by Democrats. Of course, no one could have predicted this bill's 'concessions' to Democrats were farcical. No one at all.
It's worth noting that the blogosphere is very much split on this measure. Here's Nate Silver:
Having said all of the above, the schadenfreude of certain liberals on this issue is absolutely obnoxious. A lot of people are going to be hurt by this, and not just those in the investor class. I tend to see this more as a failure of our democracy than a reaffirmation of it. The congressmen who are retiring this year -- and who therefore can perhaps be described as the most neutral arbiters of the public good -- voted overwhelmingly for this measure.
Why would retiring Congressmen who do not have to face the voters but might have to face Wall Street recruiters be neutral arbiters of the public good? Why is it bad that candidates in tight elections voted against this bill for political reasons? Isn't that how we decide stuff? I've had the TV on all day, and I just don't get this attitude. This bill was unpopular and hated because the people proposing it do not have the faith of the public to write honest laws or carry them out. That is the problem, not partisanship or an excess of democracy. The belief that democratic pressures augur against the public interest is widespread, from Silver to this recommended diary by dansac on Dailykos.
This is a political crisis, which is why the public is angrily rejecting laws based on Republican demands for a bailout and Democratic concessions which everyone involved at the time knew were a total farce.
I put all the caucuses in a spreadsheet to see voting patterns.
Blue Dogs: 59.57% yes
New Democrats: 62.71% yes
Progressives: 47.76% yes
Congressional Black Caucus: 46.15% yes
Lots of New York progressives voted yes, some surprising yes votes include Keith Ellison, Robert Wexler, and Maxine Waters. Patrick Murphy and Joe Sestak continue their descent into Bush Dog territory. Some surprising no votes include Gene Taylor, Heath Shuler, and Mike McIntyre.
Most but not all of the 'no' votes from the Blue Dogs and New Democrats are freshmen or members in tight races. By contrast, the only contested race for a progressive caucus member in which the member voted 'no' was Tom Udall. That's roughly a proxy for who has to listen to public pressure; the New Dems and Blue Dogs go left because of public pressure, the Progressives go even further left out of conviction.
... From NRO:
The bailout failed because of pure political cowardice. I used the Rothenberg Political Report to find the House incumbents who are in tough races (i.e. ones they could lose). There were 44 House members listed - 20 Democrats and 24 Republicans. Of those 44, only eight voted for the bill.
Who's interested in doing more analysis? I can give you access to the spreadsheet, or you can just download it and work on it on your own.
Regional pressures - New York which is heavily Democratic voted 25-4 for, Arizona which is split evenly voted - 0-8 against (David Kowalski)
Fladem points out that 34 of 50 members in close races according Cooke voted no
I added the Congressional Black Caucus onto the spreadsheet. They are roughly in line with the progressive caucus.
STATE BLOGS
Powered by: SoapBlox