The politics of reviving the bailout deal

Politically the place a lot of members of the House of Representatives probably wanted to be yesterday was voting against the Paulson plan but it passing anyway. There is little public enthusiasm for bailing out Wall Street, both Obama and McCain are now making a concerted effort to call it a rescue plan not a bailout. Oddly enough if the plan passes and works it will become more unpopular as people will say that the crisis really wasn’t bad enough to justify this kind of measure.

But House Republicans, two thirds of whom voted against the bill, now have a different problem: if everything does collapse, they’ll be the ones to cop the blame. So, it is in their interests now to pass a slightly better bill. They can claim to have improved it and still pulled the economy back from the brink.

Politicians on all sides have been staggeringly inept during this current crisis.