McCain and Obama are going back to work

 

ABCNews Photo Illustration

Not that running for president for about two years isn’t a demanding task. But they are senators, after all, and the country is facing this dire economic threat. They belong in Washington.

That’s where they’re both heading today, to cast their votes on the bailout package before the Senate.

This bill has a better chance of getting passed than the House version.

Congressional leaders seldom call a vote unless they know the outcome beforehand. House leaders miscalculated Monday, resulting in an unexpected defeat for the bailout. Now sweeteners are under discussion to lure dissenters in both parties.

The “both parties” part can’t be over-stressed. Partisan politics have become toxic in this country, and that largely defeated this bill in the House on Monday.

The bill’s failure in the House amounted to a colossal repudiation of the nation’s leaders, including President Bush and his would be successors, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, and House leaders. Each has chillingly described the emergency intervention as vital to forestalling a deep economic contraction that could pull millions of working people into its vortex.

Aides described a scene of miscalculation and miscommunication between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and her Republican counterpart, Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, that will have to be overcome before any re-vote is taken.

That was the widely-covered fractious debate and vote in the House Monday. The good bi-partisan efforts in the House weren’t widely covered. What a juxtaposition of Congressional attitudes at so critical a time as this.

…Pelosi’s highly charged partisan style, delivered at exactly the moment when she needed to rally every member for what everyone knew was a tense, close and politically fraught vote of great consequence, stood in sharp contrast to the bipartisan call for national unity delivered by her own top lieutenant, Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer, and by Boehner. They, unlike Pelosi, received strong applause after they spoke.

Boehner sympathized with members, saying votes don’t get much tougher…He pleaded with both sides to vote “not what is in the best interest of our party, not what’s in the best interest of our re-election (but) what’s in the best interest of our country.”

Hoyer stood to congratulate Boehner “for his courage” and called out by name as his friends the Republican as well as Democratic leaders, Bush, Obama and McCain, saying “on this day of consequence, let us meet the challenge … let us be the best of the people’s House.”

That will have to wait until the end of the week. For now, the people are looking to the people’s Senate. Where our two presidential candidates are calling on their parties to back this rescue plan for the people they serve right now.

Like my friend, Michelle, who just wrote this in an email:

They shouldn’t pass something just to pass it but something needs to be done about this & done now – if this continues & banks can’t lend money for those of us on payroll that means our companies can’t borrow money from the bank for payroll. This isn’t just a high level problem. This will start hurting main street – it already has… I know way too many people who have lost their jobs this past month b/c companies are merging or closing. When you have friends who can’t pay bills you realize what a problem this is.

I’ve been hearing personal stories all week of how this is impacting people right now, and they probably represent the majority of the country. We’re all affected by this.

It’s a financial and economic crisis alright, but at core this (and all news stories) have a moral dimension. The article in the Vatican newspaper (in a post below) addresses that. Look again at the analysis from the founder of ‘Socially Responsible Italia’, who spoke at a seminar on social development and financial markets at the Pontifical Gregorian University recently.

Nations need to reconsider now-debunked economic theories from the last century and create new rules that favor long-term growth and investments that involve “measured and manageable risk”, he said.

Businesses and stockholders should also engage in “value sharing” in which they choose investment opportunities not solely for their chances at reaping a profit “but as an opportunity to contribute to the common good” and sustainable development.

He and other speakers emphasized the importance of having banking institutions and foundations concentrate on helping the local communities in which they are based.

Any chance we can start that right now?