John McCain the Hypocrite or Did He Blow It Big Time??

For a candidate who has built his presidential campaign on fighting earmarks and other bits of political pork-barrel spending, John McCain is either a hypocrite or missed a huge opportunity by voting for this nightmare of a "economic recovery" package.

As I have railed at before, and again, and yet again, this recovery package is one part economic fixes and three parts "crap sandwich."

AND MCCAIN VOTED FOR IT!!!

This document was a giant 450 pages earmark!

It might have been a cynical maneuver, but it would have won McCain big points had he stood up and said NO!. He could easily have done some quiet internal polls of his senate brethren, determined that it would pass easily, then came out and screamed about the pork.

I cannot, in good conscience, vote for the bill in its current condition. This goes well beyond economic recovery to include some of the most opportunistic hand-outs to special interests and pounds of irrelevant pork! Fellow Senators, give me a clean economic recovery bill and I will support it! In its current form I cannot!

How hard would that have been?

Has "The Maverick" been tamed? Is this race over?

A huge opportunity missed to help prevent the utterance of the following: President Barack Obama.

Will Congress Save Us From the "Bailout"?

I know I am just spinning wheels here, but I urge the U.S. House of Representatives to recast the "Emergency Economic Stabilization" bill H.R. 1424 into an actual "bailout" measure.

Crop out "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008," and lose the rest. This section consists of only 111 pages out of 451, leaving 340 pages of tax breaks and other gimmes to myriad special interests and dis-interests that have been analyzed ad nauseum by honest journalists and reporters.

I can't agree less with the "solution" to the economic mess that the entire legislature is considering: handing $700 billion dollars to one person to dole out any way he see fit.

But, if you are going to pass this solution anyway, at least take out the parts that have nothing to do with Wall Street, mortgages, and the banking industry.

Pass a bailout-only bill. The country deserves honest solutions to the problems we face. You will have plenty of time later to throw softballs to your friends and lobbyists.

Force the Senate to re-vote on the bailout-only portion of the bill and see how they respond. If this is such a dire crisis, why would Senators need earmarked incentives to sign onto a solution?

Show the Senate and the American people that you take this issue seriously enough to evaluate the bailout on its merits, not What's in it for me?.


Do what is right for the country and solve the problem you are setting out to solve.