http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJJN9qwhkkE

The relevant part comes between 5 minutes and 5:30. The quote I keep thinking about is, “Don’t you see what’s happening? Potter isn’t not selling, Potter’s buying!…He picking up some bargains.” Replace “Potter” with “Paulson” or “The Democrats” and I think you just about have the situation down.

Regarding the Constitution, your arguments are very weak. Most of the items that you cite are regarding raising of revenues. If that is what we decide this bill was, then we need to void it since it began in the Senate and Article 1 Section 7 prevents that. But clearly this was a SPENDING bill. So your argument would rest on the concept of providing for the “general Welfare” clause.

On one hand I can admit that at least as it has been portrayed there is a sense to which that would be true of this situation. On the other hand, we see that it is really specific welfare rather than general. Why is the government negotiating leveraged buyouts between CitiBank and Wachovia and working against a purely free market deal (that appears to be a better deal for the Wachovia stockholders) between Wells Fargo and Wachovia? Is this deal helpful for people like Warren Buffett who has cash and is trying to make the best deals that he can for Berkshire Hathaway? No, this does not benefit those who are not in debt and have cash.

I repeat the 10th Amendment since it seems to be the most forgotten part of the Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Yes, I know we have violated the Amendment thousands of times. But each one hurts it.

Even if I were to concede that this were to get by the “general Welfare” clause, the next issue is whether or not this is desirable. Do we really want the largest real estate agent in the U.S. to be the Federal Government? Do we want to cede to the Federal Government the right to set prices of properties and interest rates? Both of those rights are reportedly in the plan passed by Congress. This is a can of worms situation here. Will we be able to reign in the powers we have given to the government in a time of “crisis” when the crisis is over?

Sorry, but your comment, for some reason, got stuck in our spam filter and I don’t get notified when that happens. Only when they need moderation (mostly for adding a link). It has been added.

“…the $700 billion is just part of a massive ‘pump and dump’ scheme engineered with the tacit approval of the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Once the banksters have offloaded their fraudulent securities and crappy paper on Uncle Sam, they will do whatever they need to do to pad the bottom line and drive their stocks up. That means they will shovel capital into hard assets, foreign currencies, gold, interest rate swaps, carry trade swindles, and Swiss bank accounts. The notion that they will recapitalize so they can provide loans to US consumers and businesses in a slumping economy is a pipedream.”

Government entities regularly purchase private assets… Pension plans regularly invest in private stocks and bonds… And purchasing the distressed assets is no less of an investment….

I’m in a rush, so this is cursory… I don’t think there is any serious constitutional question at stake…. but you might find your answer in Section 8 among other places… wedged into “the Power to lay and collect taxes… to pay the debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States…… To borrow Money on the credit of the United States… To establish uniform lawas on the Subject of Bankruptcies… To coin money and regulate the value thereof…. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers… ” and it is in spirit of the general welfare language of the pre-amble and so far as I can tell… in contradiction to no language that I can find.

Regarding Pence/Burton… theirs was a knee-jerk, barely concede a problem, offer a red-herring inadequate solution, tactic in order to obstruct the solution whose theory and necessity they didn’t understand. They didn’t stop to inquire, but launched into instant opposition.

(By the way, Joel, the constitutional language on equal protection and religious freedom for gay citizens is clear nationally, and virtually explicit in the Indiana constitution. The social conservative concern for the Constitution seems highly selective to me. It undermines the credibility of the far right. Only libertarians might have at a stretch have a consistent basis on which to oppose this government action to rescue our markets.

Government entities regularly purchase private assets… Pension plans regularly invest in private stocks and bonds… And purchasing the distressed assets is no less of an investment….

I’m in a rush, so this is cursory… I don’t think there is any serious constitutional question at stake…. but you might find your answer in Section 8 among other places… wedged into “the Power to lay and collect taxes… to pay the debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States…… To borrow Money on the credit of the United States… To establish uniform lawas on the Subject of Bankruptcies… To coin money and regulate the value thereof…. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers… ” and it is in spirit of the general welfare language of the pre-amble and so far as I can tell… in contradiction to no language that I can find.

Regarding Pence/Burton… theirs was a knee-jerk, barely concede a problem, offer a red-herring inadequate solution, tactic in order to obstruct the solution whose theory and necessity they didn’t understand. They didn’t stop to inquire, but launched into instant opposition.

(By the way, Joel, the constitutional language on equal protection and religious freedom for gay citizens is clear nationally, and virtually explicit in the Indiana constitution. The social conservative concern for the Constitution seems highly selective to me. It undermines the credibility of the far right. Only libertarians might have at a stretch have a consistent basis on which to oppose this government action to rescue our markets.)

Let’s go at it a different way: what part of the Constitution do you think gives the Federal Government the right to do this? (Keep in mind that I REALLY like the 10th Amendment and that the government doing other unconstitutional things does not make the current bill Constitutional).

And I disagree on the “push” aspect of the House Republicans. I heard Pence and Burton on WIBC very early on calling for action, but not the Paulson Plan. I believe the first time I heard them talking on this line was the day after the Paulson Plan was proposed.

Electronic debits and credits transferred between banks are the modern equivalent of currency. Government has a role when the system breaks down. My view (of this debate and of the House Republicans) is that they are utterly out of their depth in understanding the peril and the impact. They’ve proposed various meaningless forms of window dressing when the house is burning.

The financial arteries are no less vital than the asphalt ones on which trade flows. Why don’t we leave it to the “free market” to build highways? When there’s a massive auto accident and traffic grinds to a stop, why don’t we leave it to the “free market” to remove the bodies, clear the wreckage, establish the rules, and get traffic moving again?

Help me with what you see as the practical and constitutional difference.

The general attitude that I am seeing is “if we don’t do something there will be catastrophe, so the government must do whatever it takes to prevent that catastrophe.” That was not the basis of the establishment of our government.

Don’t attribute such awful motivations to our Republican (and many Democrat) Representatives that voted against this bill because they thought it to be an awful bill. It may or may not free up capital. But it will certainly give the Federal Government more ownership of property and control of the banking industry. There even seems to be provision for the Federal Government to determine the interest rates and principal balance of mortgages.

The arrogance is on the part of those who treated this as the “only” way to deal with the crisis, not with those who saw the evil that is in this bill and were unable to hold their nose and vote for it.