Photograph courtesy of Flickr user ucumari.

The House of Representatives has rejected a $700bn bailout for stricken Wall Street banks. The cause? Primarily rebellious Republican congressmen, less than 50% of whom backed the Republican administration’s proposal. Why? Because they fear for their seats — approval ratings for the bill vary from 12% to 22%, depending on which poll you read.

Congress has appeased what in the present circumstances can only be called the Stupid Right: the Right that doesn’t believe the failure of Wall Street will lead to the failure of Main Street and, ultimately, to the worst recession the West has seen since the ’30s. But it’s hard to blame the American public for its scepticism. Faced with the crippling hubris of millionaire bankers, faced with two presidential candidates telling them Washington is broken, they’d rather not see the national debt get $700bn worse than it is. Barack Obama and John McCain have both failed to defend the bill to the public — and their equivocating and hopeless partisanship does them no favours. Let’s hope a changed rescue package is passed soon, before US stocks plummet further.

On a lighter note…

Filed under: election2008, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on September 30th, 2008