It was almost impossible yesterday to tell the difference between John McCain and Barack Obama on the White House’s $700 billion economic rescue plan.
They both waffled.
Obama, not surprisingly, attached a list of conditions needed for the plan to win his support. In that respect, he sounded like just another Capitol Hill Democrat.
As did McCain, while advancing cautions of his own.
So much for dynamic leadership in a time of national crisis.
For that, it was necessary to turn to the testimony of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke before the Senate Banking Committee yesterday.
“Global financial markets remain under extraordinary stress,” the Treasury chief said. “We must now take further, decisive action to fundamentally, comprehensively address . . . this turmoil.”
Indeed, he said, only quick passage of the administration’s plan can “avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets that threaten . . . our economy.”
That is, it isn’t about bailing out Wall Street. It’s about saving Main Street.
Indeed, Bernanke predicted, “if the credit markets are not functioning, then jobs will be lost, our credit rate will rise, more houses will be foreclosed upon, GDP will contract [and] the economy will just be unable to recover.”
Seems pretty clear, doesn’t it? Particularly about the need for quick action.
But Congress appears to have its eyes fixed squarely on public-opinion polls.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) declared the proposal “unacceptable” after railing about the “private greed and public regulatory neglect” he blamed for the “economic maelstrom.”
Dodd and his colleagues would be struck dead before saying so, but that “private greed” also includes the avarice of those who bought homes they could not afford, lied about their incomes, borrowed more than they could ever hope to repay – or all of the above.
Now that the bills are past due, and foreclosure is knocking at the door, they want Washington to rescue them from their own extravagances by rewriting existing mortgages and forgiving homeowner debt.
The Democrats, not surprisingly, are happy to oblige – never mind that the vast majority of American homeowners, who wouldn’t dare live so far beyond their means, are being placed in severe jeopardy by all the foot-dragging.
To be sure, Paulson is not demanding that the rescue plan be adopted exactly as written.
Already, he’s agreed to a congressional oversight board and reportedly is amenable to several fixes proposed by the Republican Study Committee.
But what President Bush yesterday called the “give and take” of the legislative process cannot go on indefinitely.
Bernanke says it’s “imperative” that Congress act this week – and not load up the plan with poison-pill conditions that threaten its success.
Congress needs to listen.
Obama and McCain, likewise.
Time’s running out.