Bailout vote may cost Bonner
WASHINGTON – I never thought I’d be looking over at the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss. – a guy who once compared insurance companies to child predators during the recovery from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – as a shining example of a man of conscience and principle, but he along with Sens. Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby have demonstrated they weren’t going to be held hostage by the leaderships of their respective bodies of Congress.
Before I go off on a right-wing, pro-free market tirade, in case you haven’t heard Rep. Jo Bonner voted for the $700 billion bailout package that flew through the U.S. Senate last week. On the other hand, Taylor, Sessions and Shelby voted no.
But if there was ever any doubt Bonner has become part of the Washington establishment – marching in step with the leadership behind Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo. – this is probably the telltale sign.
Bonner has always been a stand-up guy with this columnist – here and my glory days at the University of South Alabama – but voting for that legislation, against the wishes of many of his constituents was bad form.
Despite being full of so-called tax extenders or “sweeteners” – this “rescue” doesn’t do anything to solve the problem.
Theoretically, this financial rescue/bailout legislation is set up to make the credit markets more liquid so banks are able lend money and keep the economy moving, instead of being spooked to lend. That may make sense, but it’s not a lack of liquidity these financial institutions are suffering from – it’s overextended leveraging by financial institutions.
Leverage, in financial terms, is the amount of debt used to finance a firm’s assets and at some of these institutions that’s gone by the wayside – Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual held significantly more debt than equity – in some cases at an incredible ratio of 30-to-1. The problem is the $700 billion from the government to buy up bad debt from financial institutions and sit on it until it’s good does little to resolve this problem.
This bailout isn’t what the Godfathers of capitalism like Milton Friedman and Adam Smith had in mind with their economic theories – a huge all-at-once dose of government intervention. And it certainly isn’t something President Ronald Reagan would have condoned.
So what does this vote mean politically? Bonner is not under any threat to lose his seat anytime soon, especially since he’s running unopposed in this upcoming election. But this has been the first real chink in his armor on a political level for two reasons.
First – a lot of constituents highly disapprove of Bonner’s “yes” vote, especially when it involves something as complicated as this with little-to-no explanation. Second, the Congressman’s loyalty to the leadership might be for nothing. Our Founding Fathers didn’t set up Congress as a parliamentary system, but Boehner’s inability muster up less than half the House GOP to support this legislation its first go-around could be considered a vote of no confidence in the leadership.
Bonner’s loyalty could stem from the Appropriation Committee assignment he received earlier this year, but it could be the beginning of the end and there could be a shift to the right in the House GOP leadership and that could mean the rise of popular conservative GOP members Reps. Mike Pence (Ind.) and John Shadegg (Ariz.).
But for now – come back Jo. Don’t let the culture of Pennsylvania Ave. steal your soul.
Flake on the making of the FOX ‘Earmarks for Profits’ special
A couple of months ago you may have read it here, but FOX News’ Gregg Jarrett conducted a very unflattering interview with Rep. Jo Bonner. He flat out accused Bonner of abusing the earmark process and berated him for not condemning other members of Congress for designating earmarks where there may have been a perceived conflict of interest.
Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., still a little disappointed, to put it mildly, that he was passed over for Bonner for an open spot on the House Appropriation Committee earlier this year, explained how he had obtained a copy of the a recent defense appropriations bill – which you may think might be readily available and out there, but isn’t – and how he distributed it.
“The Defense Appropriations Bill – nobody has even seen these earmarks as I’ve mentioned because the committee has held all the copies,” Flake said. “We tried every which way to get a copy from the committee and couldn’t until a friendly member slipped one under the table to me. And so we’ve been able to get it that way, but that’s the only way. But when we do get them out, we pass them out to these outside groups and they’ve been able to do research on a lot of these earmarks.
According to Flake, who was explaining this to a group assembled at the conservative Heritage Foundation recently, this tactic of covertly obtaining a copy of proposed appropriations legislation was the impetus for the FOX News special.
“It’s led to things like that FOX special, the ‘Pork for Profit,’ and a lot of the other things where information about these earmarks is well known and that has helped immensely.”
I did ask Flake to assess Bonner’s performance since coming on the committee in March, but he declined based on a lack of appropriations activity in the House.
“I have to say, we’ve only passed one appropriations bill – military construction on the floor, so we really haven’t had a sense of what Republicans on the appropriations committee are going to do, so it’s too early to tell,” Flake said.
Contact Jeff Poor at jeffreypoor@yahoo.com.
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