Ensley, you’re scrambling two different bills (you may have followed a link that Uncle $cam posted earlier, that led to the wrong bill).
H.RES.1517
Title: Providing for consideration of the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 3997) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes.
HR 3997
Title: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
If you go here, you can click on a list of all the bills that Congress dealt with yesterday. While Rome burns, they still found time to honor the heroes who do something “because it’s there”:
H.RES.1474 : Recognizing the 50th anniversary of the first vertical ascent of the face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park and honoring the historic climbing feat of the original climbing team.
Sponsor: Rep Radanovich, George [CA-19] (introduced 9/22/2008)
Committees: House Natural Resources
Latest Major Action: 9/29/2008 Passed/agreed to in House. Status: On agreeing to the resolution Agreed to without objection.

Posted by: catlady | Sep 30 2008 14:41 utc | 4

Can you believe it! 40% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans actually listened to their constituents yesterday! We may have really had a representative govt for one brief and shining moment.
Of course, the day after Election Day they will get back on their high horses and work diligently to again benefit themselves, their lobbyists and their buddies — and stick it royally to the taxpayers.

Posted by: Ensley | Sep 30 2008 15:44 utc | 6

Thanks for the link to Ian Welsh’s alternate plan. Interesting reading! Any three of his eleven proposals would be an improvement over the present package.
It’ll be interesting to sort out who voted against the bill and who supported it. I thought I heard Maxine Waters speaking yesterday on the pro side. Aside from Wall Street campaign contributions, I wonder how many simply voted to protect their own stock portfolios –like Nancy Pelosi, for example.

Posted by: plato’s cave | Sep 30 2008 15:55 utc | 8

It appears the bill was defeated by a small margin because the Democrats added several conditions (I’ve not read the bill or much about it), dealing with home owners, timing, oversight, disclosure, transparency, and possibly more.
Some Dems then voted against, either because they considered the additions not sweeping / strong / enforceable enough, or just on principle or fear of being booted out or whatever.
But the Repubs. no longer wanted it with the Dem. additions. To sum up, under one pov, the Dems tried to ensure it would do what it was supposed to, but then many Repubs said No, their loopy libertarianism and their constituents opinions being used as a convenient fig leaf. Very innovative!
Which makes one wonder, what was it for in the first place? ?
Then the Repubs. blamed the dems, citing Pelosi’s speech, for putting a spanner in the works. Of course no speech had anything to do with the vote, the Dems did kill it while being for it (with the amendments etc.)
These are center-right struggles. And just for that reason, some version will probably pass. But time marches on and events will change things, so who knows. The Jewish holiday thing surprised me as well.
Debs wrote in the other thread: From my rather remote perspective it becomes interesting to try and guess whether the bill will come back in similar form to the way it left, just with all of the pork chops stuck to it, or whether they will pretend that the bail out is a dead duck and skin this skunk differently but just the same.
That depends on what the aim was in the first place. But it is very possible that the Banker/wall str./ finance / repub. contingent floated it as a trial balloon and will abandon it immediately – no skin of their noses. (See e.g. McCain, link posted by *a* at 7.) Or, possibly the amended version (or something close to it with some important but hidden language changed) can be made to pass, and touted as democracy at work, a bi-partisan effort, etc.

Posted by: Tangerine | Sep 30 2008 16:29 utc | 10

they were once merchants of mendacious & made up money
now they are simply panic merchants
their fear faithfully enunciated everywhere & sold by the unit 24/24 with their crop of corrupted commentators
& the public swallowing this shit as if it is chocolate icecream

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 30 2008 16:53 utc | 12

S&P400 up 4+%, Dow up 3.5% – who needs a bailout?

Posted by: b | Sep 30 2008 18:13 utc | 14

Tangerine: your first comment here (and past ones) are very perceptive, so I wonder why you link Republicans with Wall St, when as far as I know, it is the Dems who are in WS’s pocket.
It’s a profound mystery to me — almost a divine intervention — that the Repugs managed to save the Dems from being tarred with an utter political failure, amost as great as approving the Iraq war.

Posted by: seneca | Sep 30 2008 19:06 utc | 16

There is a lot of hyperbole in the current media.
Indeed it seems like only yesterday people were saying “everything financial will now go down hard!” and “a total meltdown of the US financial system could occur!” and that “9/29 will be a marked day for historians – maybe even as big (bigger?) than 9/11!!”
Yes those ‘media hysterics’ sure were full of it.

Posted by: vaudois | Sep 30 2008 19:49 utc | 18

By Gavin Finch and David Yong
Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) — The cost of borrowing in dollars overnight surged the most on record after the U.S. Congress rejected a $700 billion bank rescue plan, heightening concern more institutions will fail.
The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks charge each other for such loans climbed 431 basis points to an all-time high of 6.88 percent today, the British Bankers’
Association said. The euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor, for one-month loans climbed to record 5.05 percent, the European Banking Federation said. The Libor-OIS spread, a gauge of the scarcity of cash, advanced to a record. Rates in Asia also rose.
“The money markets have completely broken down, with no trading taking place at all,” said Christoph Rieger, a fixed- income strategist at Dresdner Kleinwort in Frankfurt. “There is no market any more. Central banks are the only providers of cash to the market, no-one else is lending.” Credit markets have seized up, tipping banks toward insolvency and forcing U.S. and European governments to rescue five banks in the past two days, including Dexia SA, the world’s biggest lender to local governments, and Wachovia Corp. Money- market rates climbed even after the Federal Reserve yesterday more than doubled the size of its dollar-swap line with foreign central banks to $620 billion. Banks borrowed dollars from the ECB at almost six times the Fed’s benchmark interest rate today.
Libor-OIS Spread
The Libor-OIS spread, the difference between the three- month dollar rate and the overnight indexed swap rate, widened to 246 basis points, showing cash scarcity is at a record.
The difference between what banks and the U.S. Treasury pay to borrow money for three months, the so-called TED spread, was at 338 basis points today after breaching 350 basis points for the first time yesterday. The spread was at 110 basis points a month ago.
“We can be sure that funding pressures are not going to ease while there is so much uncertainty,” said Adam Carr, senior economist in Sydney at ICAP Australia Ltd., part of the world’s largest inter-bank broker. “Cash is going to be at a premium. There’s really no end in sight.”

Posted by: vbo | Oct 1 2008 0:15 utc | 20

I disagree that raising wages is the solution, jdp, although I understand the position. I have lived in squalid poverty while still arguing against the raising of wages simply because it seems like an extremely short-term solution which would promote consumer inflation in very short order. The solution to that would be to raise wages again… and the cycle would continue unchecked. You, yourself say that you “…make good money and I can’t afford to do shit and I’m actually going backwards”, so the solution is obviously not to just throw more money at the collection of problems.
It could be countered that the cost of living is rising independently of where real wages are, and this is certainly true, but a rise would only add fuel to those factors and be an excuse to continue not to address them.
Idealist that I am, I firmly believe that cost/quality of life issues will only be realistically addressed when a majority are in the same boat. As long as there are a slim majority who can sneer and be able to say “I got mine!”, there will be no genuine progress in this front except for the occasional concession every election cycle that only serves to prolong a slim minority’s suffering. People think I am a heartless bastard and am getting off on the idea of people’s pain, but I honestly look forward to the rocky economics as the only possible agents of genuine change. Band-aids only serve to draw things out longer for the impoverished.
This is why I disagree with the supporting arguments of this analysis, but am entirely behind the conclusion: Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the answer

Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 1 2008 3:45 utc | 22

Here’s what I don’t understand…. The big issue right now is supposed to be that the credit market is “clogged.” Banks are not lending – not to each other, not to businesses that need the money for growth, etc., etc. However, where is all the money that was pouring into CDS (doubling in volume every year & now equal to the world’s GDP) and other financial instruments?
Is it all being held as banks, institutions, etc. are scared of taking any risks and want to keep liquid? It’s not the fact that they loaned money like drunks to anyone with a pulse (and even some without) that is causing the current credit “clog” problems, it’s the fact that they have a hangover and have suddenly turned parsimonious and are hanging on tightly to their money and not loaning it to good prospects!! Possibly this is a ridiculously silly suggestion (otherwise surely someone would have suggested this), but perhaps the government intervention shouldn’t be on the “back end” (i.e. helping the financial companies clean up their toxic waste), but on the “front end” e.g. some sort of federal guarantee of all new loans struck provided they meet certain criteria…(tied to real assets vs. second, third, fourth order derivatives, etc.) Once this unclogs the system (which is supposed to be the immediate problem) then theyt can look at slowly unwinding all the garbage…

Posted by: Tosk | Oct 1 2008 4:26 utc | 24

As usual, John Young’s Crypttome site has puts some “non-standard” information
into the public domain. For example, these examples of Hanky-panky,
and the links at the main page regarding the use of misleading names for the (various forms of) the bail-out bill. This type of misconduct (Paulson’s unpaid debts and advantageous treatment, being only one of the latest, and less egregious, examples) and administration flim-flam (giving “patriotic” names to crassly plutocratic or overtly authoritarian legislative proposals) are well documented for those who want to know, but seldom rise into view in the traditional mass media. The latter are more concerned with such essential matters as telecasting interviews from an Alaskan island from which Russia is visible.
Two further comments: both Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul voted “no” to the bail-out proposal. Paul did so despite having received $1.3 million in campaign contributions from financial industry sources. The late Jesse Unruh would be proud of Ron. Kucinich’s views may be found at his website. Here is an excerpt from a recent Kucinich e-mail:

Yesterday marked a day that will go down in history, when Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike took on full responsibility to protect the interests of taxpaying Americans, and defeated the deceptive bail out bill, defying the dictates of the Administration, the House Majority Leadership, the House Minority Leadership and the special interests on Wall Street.
Obviously Congress must consider quickly another course … so that the taxpayers, their assets, and their futures are protected.
We MUST do something to protect millions of Americans whose homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions are at risk in a financial system that has become seriously corrupted. We are told that we must stabilize markets in order for the people to be protected. I think we need to protect peoples’ homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions, to order to stabilize the market.
We cannot delay taking action. But the action must benefit all Americans, not just a privileged few. Otherwise, more plans will fail, and the financial security of everyone will be at risk.
The $700 billion bailout would have added to our existing unbearable load of national debt, trade deficits, and the cost of paying for the war. It would have been a disaster for the American public and the government for decades and maybe even centuries to come.
To be sure, there are many different reasons why people voted against the bailout. The legislation did not regard in any meaningful way the plight of millions of Americans who are about to lose their homes. It did nothing to strengthen existing regulatory structures or impose new ones at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve in order to protect investors. There were no direct protections for bank depositors. There was nothing to stop further speculation, which is what brought us into this mess in the first place.
This was a bailout for some firms (and investors) on Wall Street, with the idea that in doing so there would be certain, unspecified, general benefits to the economy.
This is a perfect time to open a broader discussion about our financial system, especially our monetary system. Such a discussion is like searching for a needle in a haystack, and then, upon finding it, discussing its qualities at great length. Let me briefly describe the haystack instead.
Here is a very quick explanation of the $700 billion bailout within the context of the mechanics of our monetary and banking system:
The taxpayers loan money to the banks. But the taxpayers do not have the money. So we have to borrow it from the banks to give it back to the banks. But the banks do not have the money to loan to the government. So they create it into existence (through a mechanism called fractional reserve) and then loan it to us, at interest, so we can then give it back to them.
Confused?
This is the system. This is the standard mechanism used to expand the money supply on a daily basis not a special one designed only for the “$700 billion” transaction. People will explain this to you in many different ways, but this is what it comes down to.
The banks needed Congress’ approval. Of course in this topsy turvy world, it is the banks which set the terms of the money they are borrowing from the taxpayers. And what do we get for this transaction? Long term debt enslavement of our country. We get to pay back to the banks trillions of dollars ($700 billion with compounded interest) and the banks give us their bad debt which they cull from everywhere in the world.
Who could turn down a deal like this? I did.
The globalization of the debt puts the United States in the position that in order to repay the money that we borrow from the banks (for the banks) we could be forced to accept International Monetary Fund dictates which involve cutting health, social security benefits and all other social spending in addition to reducing wages and exploiting our natural resources. This inevitably leads to a loss of economic, social and political freedom.
Under the failed $700 billion bailout plan, Wall Street’s profits are Wall Street’s profits and Wall Street’s losses are the taxpayers’ losses. Profits are capitalized. Losses are socialized.

All this is surely subject to debate, and, in some measure reducible to election campaign boilerplate, but at least Kucinich is among the few congressional voices raising what seem to me to be the right questions. Finally, apologies for the long quote. I was unable to find a link to the text of K’s letter.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 1 2008 6:03 utc | 26

The bill is now 450 pages long. Up from the original 3 page Paulson back o’ the envelope proposal.
from a blogger who has read the thing, or skimmed it at least:link it includes varia such as:
▪ Sec. 308. Increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
▪ Sec. 310. Extension of mine rescue team training credit.
▪ Sec. 311. Extension of election to expense advanced mine safety equipment.
▪ Sec. 316. Railroad track maintenance.
▪ Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility.
▪ Sec. 324. Extension of enhanced charitable deduction for contributions of book inventory.
▪ Sec. 325. Extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products; wool research fund; wool duty refunds.
▪ Sec. 502. Provisions related to film and television productions.
▪ Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children.
The US Gvmt. is completely crazy.
***PDF 450 pp : To amend section 712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act, section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment, and for other purposes. … (etc.) link
seneca, you are right I suppose, they are both linked to W St, the Dems more in fact, but the Repubs. too – hard to judge. For sure, Obama is a creature of Wall St. …

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 2 2008 14:47 utc | 28

Thanks, dan. Pretty much sums it up,don’t you know?

Posted by: jonku | Oct 3 2008 17:30 utc | 30