Welfare for Wall Street Passes House 263-171

Folks were calling it the Bailout Bill, but then the powers that be ordered that it henceforth should be called the Rescue Bill. I can't call it that, so I switched to Welfare for Wall Street, which has a certain ring to it. Anyway, the "sweetened" legislation passed the U.S. House today by a vote of 263-171. A total of 172 Democrats supported it, while 63 voted no. The Republicans mustered 91 votes, leaving 108 Rs voting no.

Rep. Tom Udall (D, NM-03), voted no, as he did on the first vote earlier this week. Here's his statement explaining why. Our future U.S. Senator hung in there. Thanks should be extended. Rep. Steve Pearce (R, NM-02) also voted no, but Rep. Heather Wilson (R, NM-01) voted yes.

By now you know how I feel about this legislation. We're supposed to be convinced that it was always a choice between "doing nothing" and supporting this bill, and SOMETHING had to be done IMMEDIATELY. No time to look at alternatives. Too bad the major players didn't notice something going awry months or even years ago, and start working on various options to address the structural problems and criminality that got us here. Well, we all know they noticed it -- but they wanted to milk the situation for every drop before tossing in the towel and ceding hundreds of billions of taxpayer funds to the very people and institutions who were in on the elaborate scams. You know how it is for the connected, wealthier-than-thou elites -- including a fair share of Senators.

Now the U.S. government can begin the task of selling hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Treasury Bills to the Russians, the Chinese and the Saudis et al. It's morning in 'Merica, ain't it?