Seriously, can someone explain why the government can't just replace the functions WaMu, AIG, etc?

We should be looking to help people who have lost their jobs - just like Clinton did when he took office, the next president should immediately lengthen unemployment insurance payouts. Aside from that, with or without the bailout we are facing a painful adjustment for many people. It's how markets work. American society has been overconsuming for decades, it looks like it's time to pay. Borrowing a trillion more dollars from foreign banks and governments to hand out to idiots who caused this problem won't change that, it'll just ensure many of those idiots have more money they don't deserve.

No party is going to pass a bill without significant buy-in from the other, not with elections a little more than a month.

If the Dems hammer through an unpopular bill (which the current bailout is), they'll get fucking clobbered in November, especially if Republicans can just close their eyes and scream SOCIALISM as loud as they can.

Of course, you could attempt to gather votes on the merit of the bill ... but really, how's that going to look on CNN?

"The banking industry is in trouble with or without this bailout. Its efforts to change accounting rules to hide its problems are sad and appalling. The defeated bill would have authorized the Securities and Exchange Commission to suspend the mark-to-market rule, which forced the banks to admit how badly they had gambled and lost. The S.E.C. has already yielded to political pressure and barred short-selling in financial stocks, so it is possible it would yield to the accounting pressure as well."

Dodd too, Mr. Sweetheart CountryWide Mortgage and biggest recipient of Fannie/Freddie contributions in Congress.

Why are we so willing to scream and yell and point fingers at the Republicans and not also hold accountable our own Democratic representatives who had a hand in this?

Is it easier to stomach right now if we cast this as the evil Republicans? Because any way you slice it this was a pile of garbage that they ALL were trying to shove down our throats in a hurry with no guarantee that it actually would solve the problems they were claiming it would solve.

Shit, here's a bottom line for all of you, both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the clusterfuck we're in right now and both Democrats and Republicans are trying to screw the American people while attempting to pin the blame on the other party.

Whoo, now I'm tired. BTW, Obama is still better than McCain.

the prevention of short sales wasn't a guarantee that the market wouldn't crash, just an attempt to prevent it from crashing harder.

I find it really irritating that government action was taken based on bad information such as "shorting caused companies to collapse" not the underlying cash flow problems or poor investments. No, it was 12 months of companies being shorted that did them in. Nevermind that people made money off their shorts, lending out shares at insane interest rates for shorters to borrow, that it created a false bounce two days last week, etc etc.

No, the shorting ban was going to stop companies' stock price from going down.

Is the entire platform of the Republican party now based on the premise that Republicans are never directly responsible for their own actions or the consequences of those actions?

Behold, their mighty rhetoric...

http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/contact.shtml

Nice summary of the vote from a great website.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/near-death-of-state.html