What the public wants is someone with a new face, new ideas, and new energy to, ya know, like, to fix it.

Gee, I wonder why the American people instinctively distrust a plan originally put forward by the minions of George W Bush, and left largely intact by congress?

I can't figure that out.

Earlier today Obama called for increasing FDIC insurance from 100K to 250K. A ffew minutes ago, someone "familiar with the Republican negotiations" said on MSNBC that they think this may be enough to persuade more Republicans to support the bill. Right. That and a few poll results, perhaps.

Meanwhile, OT, too bad there wasn't You Tube in 1998:

[JOHN MCCAIN]: You could say, Look, is this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that's depicted? Most of us have never heard of him before. And where there is a parallel with Vietnam is: What's plan B? What do we do next? We sent our troops into Vietnam to protect the bases. Lyndon Johnson said, Only to protect the bases. Next thing you know.... Well, we've declared to the terrorists that we're going to strike them wherever they live. That's fine. But what's next? That's where there might be some comparison.

The question asks "How concerned are you that [the vote] could lead to a more severe economic decline in this country"? I think that, even if I were opposed to the bill (which I'm not), I'd say I was concerned that its failure could be a negative -- I, like most, don't really understand it too well. Even as a supporter of the bill I'm certainly concerned that it might not work out as I hope it will. I think that might explain the seeming inconsistency in people's answers.

This is confusing because people don't understand the problem and have not been offered a menu of solutions. This was mishandled from day one, with Paulson on his pathetic knees after pretending for months that nothing was wrong. People are pissed that it has come to this and are saying, "OK, do something - but don't do just any old thing."

If there are alternate plans and people can be educated about their worth, the polls will become less confusing.

This was the whole reason the bill needed to be bi-partisan. Because voters knew something needed to be done, but any specific proposal would be unpopular. And so the blame needed to be shared with everyone. But instead, Republicans decided to turn it into a political hand grenade, but the thing blew up in their face because they didn't have anywhere to throw it.

I'm just glad Dems didn't take the advice of the trolls and try to push this through on their own. That's exactly what the Republicans wanted, which is why the trolls continue to insist we should have done it. Always do the opposite of whatever these dopes say.

After the dust settles, I suspect game theorists will be using this as a real-life variation on the Prisoner's Dilemma.

It's like immigration reform all over again: two sets of opponents from opposite sides of the political spectrum, for basically opposite reasons. But they don't have to all be on the same page, whereas the people supporting it do.

Incidentally, that's perhaps why the centrist parties failed in the UK in the Thatcher era: two-front wars are never a good thing.

I don't think the poll is so surprising. Everybody knows the market will take a beating for the failure of the existing measure. The way I read it is: Many people are willing to absorb even a generous dose of short-to-medium-length pain in order to address the long-term structural problems of Wall Street – either by rejecting the package, letting the blue chips fall where they may and getting muscular regulatory authority, or by getting an explicitly consumer/homeowner-first bailout package. I'm sure those with shaky job security or nearing retirement feel differently.

This is precisely what happens when a whole lot of messages are coming at you at once. Right now we're getting:

1] Doom and gloom about the economy.
2] Congress must do something.
3] It's the fault of crooked bankers.
4] Or the fault of banks loaning to minorities.
5] Or Reaganomics.
6] $700b is a shitload of money.
7] Crooked CEOs shouldn't have golden parachutes.
8] Joe Taxpayer shouldn't have to pay for the bailout.
9] Your bank is going to close if Joe Taxpayer doesn't bailout the crooked CEOs.
10] We're all going to be wearing wooden barrels in a minute or two.

When everybody's whipped up with limited facts, each question has its own meaning and nothing to do with any other question.

It's quite obvious. The public believes that something must be done, but that this particular proposal was not the right solution.

Well, since even skilled economists aren't in agreement on what the best way forward is, should we expect the general public to be any more sure about how they feel?

Something that would be very popular with the public and extremely helpful would be to allow bankruptcy judges to reset the terms of the mortgage on a first home to allow the payment to be more affordable to the homeowner. At present bankruptcy judges don't have this discretion, and therefore are unable to prevent a foreclosure.

I emphasize the first home above because, to John McCain's benefit, bankruptcy judges do have the authority to reset mortgage terms on second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh homes in order to help the rich to keep them. Again, such discretion doesn't apply to first homes only.

This change alone would reduce the risk of millions of foreclosures on the middle class and poor and would therefore increase the value of the mortgage backed securities.

What is obvious is that the public thinks something must be done. What I think needs to be investigated is whether the public actually knows what is being proposed.

It's possible to reconcile the two by saying that an economic downturn now is better than the long-term effects of the bailout. Is that what the respondents were thinking? Probably not, but it works.

Steve:
All of that is exactly how I feel. My head is spinning trying to come to grips with how I truly feel about this bill and it's apparent that I am not alone in this sentiment. Yeah okay we need a bailout....but, and I hate to say this, some of things that Riehl states in the article Hilzoy presented sound about right. Like I said my head is spinning.

What I'd like to know is what if any are specific left concerns and recommendations about the proposed bill?

Or is this as good as it gets?

From what I gathered (by the U.C. Berkley professor of Econ. Maddow interviewed yesterday), this is a darn decent one
and they did make changes to cover critical areas--

So it's now their job to communicate that to everyone else somehow--and quickly (?).

I would like to see the questions, but if they were asked like this, the results seems logical.

- Do you support a $700B bailout ?? No
- Who do you think is responsible for not getting the bailout passed ?? Republicans
- Do you think the failure of Congress to pass the measure could lead to more economic decline ?? Yes

The problem with polls like this is the questions are rarely dependent on the preceding question and that is bound to produce seemingly illogical results.

There's a good roundup of economists at TPM . Jeffrey Miron, Visiting Professor in the Department of Economics at Harvard University, among others, says, “let ’em fail,” if need be.

David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning economic journalist, notes what Iblogged about Sunday; Paulson’s HUGE conflict of interest in the AIG bailout.

How many other conflicts of interest does Paulson have buried that Congressional Dems (and GOP) didn’t ask about?

extremely helpful would be to allow bankruptcy judges to reset the terms of the mortgage on a first home

I don't know this for certain, but I suspect congressmen are afraid that this would encourage people to file for bankruptcy who otherwise would try to avoid it at all costs.

Fixing the economy ought to be the job of the next administration, and the problems go far deeper than Wall Street. Reaganomics doesn't work. We need a new deal. Why are we scrambling to "solve" a problem that is but a symptom of the failure of Republican ideology over the last 28 years?

It's Bush who is pushing for this deal, to save his legacy. He triggered the alarm bells. The rest of us panicked. Why? Shouldn't we be more suspicious than fearful? I think this is an attempt to bail out Bush's legacy, not the economy.

We are working furiously to pass a bill just to be able to say something was done about "it." There is no consensus about what "it" is. "It" didn't even exist until a couple of weeks ago. And this bill doesn't solve any of the economic problems we have been talking about for years, the systemic failure of Reaganomics.

This is just Iraq all over again.

I don't understand why Obama doesn't present a long term plan to resolve not just this, but the deeper economic problems the Republicans have created, and to explain patiently that it can't be done overnight, nor by putting lipstick on the president's supply side bailout pig.

I'm on the fence about the bill's merits, but there's nothing necessarily inconsistent in opposing the bill while believing that its failure may lead to a greater economic decline. Recessions are part of the normal economic cycle; government interventions with taxpayer dollars to save businesses from the consequences of their own bad judgement typically are not.

Anonymous commenter wrote: "What I'd like to know is what if any are specific left concerns and recommendations about the proposed bill?"

Of course there are "specific left concerns and recommendations" that have been put forward by progressive Congressional Democrats including Dennis Kucinich, Lynn Woolsey and Peter DeFazio.

But you won't see those concerns and recommendations being discussed or analyzed by "sensible liberal" bloggers like Steve Benen and Kevin Drum.

As far as "sensible liberals" are concerned, the substantive concerns of progressive Democrats don't exist and the only opposition to the Cheney-Bush-Paulson bailout comes from "Lou Dobbs populist know-nothing yahoos".

It reminds me all too much of the way progressive Democrats who questioned Bush's fraudulent case for the invasion of Iraq were marginalized and ridiculed by the same "sensible liberal" establishment in the fall of 2002.

It's easy to understand. As an American, I don't want to see my country in peril. But in this situation, I can't believe the only way out is to give welfare to unpatriotic, un-American, wealthy, war lovers who have been selling this country as fast as they can for eight years.

When I hear Bush saying "Give us the money or else!" It's really hard to say yes, knowing he's not going to be punished, nor any of his minions that are responsible for both this debacle and the war debacle.

After yesterday, I feel Pelosi and Reid should write anything else they want into the bill and strike anything conciliatory for Republicans. Then instruct the Dems in the house to keep voting exactly the same way until the Republicans finally send up enough to pass.

This citizen has had enough of the Republicans. There's no pleasing them anyway.

The plan failed because the plan was awful. And the "protections" were toothless because, in many cases, it was at the discretion of the Treasury or the President to apply them. Congress tried to pass a bill that was substantially unchanged from Paulson's original proposal. It failed. Good riddance.

Up until now, Paulson has been consistently wrong about this "crisis". Turning to him for the solution is folly.

There is time to do this right. Ask Congress to come up with their own bill. There are literally dozens of plans being offered by economists who actually saw this coming. They should be able to help craft legislation that will ease the credit crisis, minimize taxpayer losses and force most losses onto those most responsible.

For a good primer on why this Paulson's bill should not be revived, I invite you to read Roubini’s blog.

http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/253783/is_purchasing_700_billion_of_toxic_assets_the_best_way_to_recapitalize_the_financial_system_no_it_is_rather_a_disgrace_and_rip-off_benefitting_only_the_shareholders_and_unsecured_creditors_of_banks

Like racerX and Capt Kirk, if the Bush administration really really wants a bill passed URGENTLY and Pelosi is willing to sign off on it, I instinctively yell "no."

Fool me once, fool me twice, etc.

Like Mr. Benen, I was (and am) confused by some of the poll results. I also find this confusing:

The public was largely split on whether the bill has merit -- 47% opposed the package, 45% supported it.

So out of the general public, 92% feel that they have enough grasp about what the bill actually is that they can have an opinion on it? I suspect I know more about the bill than at least 50% of the population, but I dont feel as if I know nearly enough to form an intelligent opinion on it.

Often I'm stunned at polls that show 8% or more of the population has no opinion on some subject or another. In this case, I'm surprised it's only 8%.

"... but it's far from clear exactly how Americans want policy makers to proceed ..."
This one is easy. The public wants congress to figure out a much better bill that doesn't reward Wall Street multi-millionaires who made the mess. They want a bill that does more to protect common American citizens from this nasty stuff that they seem to have no control over. They want congress to figure it out and pass it tomorrow. If that means a different way to address the credit squeeze, so be it.
I'm not saying that what the public wants is a practical possibility, but I think it's pretty clear what they want.

"... but it's far from clear exactly how Americans want policy makers to proceed ..."
This one is easy. The public wants congress to figure out a much better bill that doesn't reward Wall Street multi-millionaires who made the mess. They want a bill that does more to protect common American citizens from this nasty stuff that they seem to have no control over. They want congress to figure it out and pass it tomorrow. If that means a different way to address the credit squeeze, so be it.
I'm not saying that what the public wants is a practical possibility, but I think it's pretty clear what they want.

Oh, and another thing. In general, out there, I don't think the public is buying the whole "there's a gun to your head" characterization. They recognize the seriousness of the problem, but they are not buying the urgency that feels like they're being railroaded. It probably has something to do with certain leaders crying "wolf" a few too many times.

Simple. We want a solution that doesn't involve turning our life savings over to the criminals who stole our retirements and our homes.

People are against the bailout bill that failed because it still rewarded the criminals and punished their victims - us.

People know there's a crisis - we aren't stupid. We want a solution that punishes the criminals, redesigns the system to ensure this crisis or anything like it never happens again, and helps the victims get back on their feet.

Fucking goddamn simple, fucking goddamn obvious.

Americans have not reaped the benefits of their growing economy for more than twenty years. Economic growth has accrued to the wealthiest without any of the trickle down of prosperity promised. The financial segment of the economy did benefit from the economic growth, but kept if for themselves. Now Americans are being asked to bailout the finance industry, despite not being able to benefit from any of its ecomomic prosperity. Americans have not, and will not, benefit from the prosperity on Wall Street, so see no need for a government bailout.

The bill provided very little control over the disbursing of the funds - rewarding those who got us into this mess?
The bill provided little assistance to the average citizen - the ones who will have to pay for it.
Why would anyone be for it?

danp @ 5:05 PM posted: "...I suspect congressmen are afraid this would encourage people to file for bankruptcy...".
I don't know about "congressmen", but there were reports of lobbyists heading to DC at the beginning of this mess to work on Republican members to ensure that any plan passed by Congress DIDN'T allow judges to resest mortgage rates. Another reason not to believe the Republicans.

I think we need to hear more reassuring details that indicate that the rich people in these companies won't come out unscathed. Because it feels kind of like every American will be paying $10,000 to give the executives in a bunch of companies who deserve to go bust a free ride. I've heard some confusing stuff about how the US will buy the mortgages of Americans from these companies and then arrange better terms for people so they can stay in their houses. Presumably. Though I haven't heard at what value these homes will be purchased. I heard that CEO's golden parachutes weren't going to be allowed and then heard a Wall Street commentator saying that this part of the bill really wouldn't really be enforced --- that it would take another bill to make that happen. Now I think if I knew that the entire use of the funds was to buy people's mortgages from banks at the current value of the property, and then to arrange terms with the people living on these properties to be able to eventually pay off their loans --- then that's a bill I could be sure we should all get behind. And as far as I can see, that would give a nice influx of cash to these companies to restart their ability to make responsible loans --- particularly making sure that payrolls and credit cards "work." (And sure I'd like to go after the golden parachutes, too, but that's a secondary matter.)

I think these supposedly confusing poll results could indicate an engaged and intelligent electorate. I would fall right in line with the results, myself. I do think this is a significant crisis that requires drastic action, but was never all that enthusiastic for this bill. Nothing seems odd or confusing or contradictory about that, frankly.

I have been swayed over to the position of effectively nationalizing these companies. That seems a solution that is more likely to work and less likely to just bail out the scumbags on Wall Street that caused the problem in the first place.