[Peace-discuss] Another Democrat betrayal

[C. G. Estabrook]

Stuart Levy wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 12:16:52AM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>> Altho' the bailout is in the interests of the rich and against those of the 
>> (much more numerous) poor, it's instructive that the Senate Democrats, the 
>> Senate Republicans, and the House Democrats all support it.  But the deal 
>> fell apart last week because the *House Republicans* wouldn't support it.  
>> Why not? Because their mail and phone calls were running 10-1 against it, 
>> and the House Republicans are reflecting the views of their constituents, 
>> while the others (Pelosi et al.) are protecting the interests of the rich 
>> -- with some interesting exceptions, like Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL).  
>> --CGE
> 
> Do you think that's why?  Surely it's not only the House Republicans who are
> hearing from their consituents.  (Sherrod Brown, D-OH, mentioned last week
> that his office was hearing something like 99-1 against, and I'm sure
> he's not alone.)   The Republicans do have other goals, such as eliminating
> corporate taxes and the capital gains tax -- if we didn't think so before,
> both of those provisions were in *their* proposed bailout plan.
> 
> If the House Republicans have thrown enough sand in the gears to block a prompt
> and successful vote, that's a good thing, but I hope we don't go thinking
> they're doing out of populism.

I think that is the reason. Senate Republicans (and Democrats) share the same 
pro-business goals as the House Republicans. The question is, why have the 
latter acted differently and blocked a matter of obvious importance to big 
business?  Part of it is that some of them really believe the ideology (small 
government, etc.) that's been their smokescreen for a generation.  The rest is 
that they're far enough down the food-chain not to have been forced covertly to 
adopt the interests of the few while they proclaim what they take to be the 
interests of the many. It's an interesting glitch in the business control of 
government.  But we're prevented from seeing it if we hold to our faith in the 
Democrats as the "party of the common man" [sic]. --CGE