This is a very different matter from the "porkulus" bill and it cannot reasonably be summoned up to support a projection of Boehner's future behavior. We simply do not not yet know how Boehner is going to behave and his speech about tarp is of very little instructive use. We do know that he voted against "porkulus" and everything else that came along including Obama care, as did the rest of the Republicans almost unanimously.
At the time of the tarp Bill I posted this reply expressing my lack of clarity on the matter. I reproduce this reply from 2008 to remind us all how difficult such an emergency situation can be for those charged with the protection of the Republic:
"I have not yet posted on the wisdom of the bail out because, frankly, I do not know what to say. I do not know what to say because of the things I do not know. First, I do not know if the bailout plan will work. Second, I do not know if the entire world system will crash without such a plan. Third, I do not know what the odds are of either a successful bailout or a world crash so I cannot weigh the severity of potential harm against the likelihood of the harm occurring.
I know what my ideology is, I am opposed to government meddling in the economy on the way up and on the way down either by picking winners or by rescuing losers. On the other hand, I recognize the extreme danger to the very survival of my ideology should the country descend into a depression. I am well read enough to know about the Great Depression and what it did to other democracies around the world and how close our own American democracy came to descending into communism. So, I do not know in which direction lurks a greater danger to the ideal of conservatism.
I do know that the Constitution as written prohibits virtually every facet of the proposed bailout plan. I know that no federal court that I can think of will conceivably declare any part of the plan to be repugnant to the constitution. Therefore, I know I cannot rely on the courts to protect the Constitution. However, I also know that the political will will triumph regardless of the Constitution and it is bootless to fall on one's ideological sword to no purpose.
I do not know what it is like to live through a depression although my father has described what it was like in the rural South when people literally had no money and had to contrive a barter economy. On the other hand, I do not know what it is like to live through a raging inflation such as was sustained here in Germany during the Weimar and even today in Zimbabwe. I do not know if doing nothing will generate a depression. I do not know if these bailouts will generate hyperinflation.
I do know that if abandoning my ideology long enough to countenance the bailout would save the country from a depression, I would do it in a heartbeat.
I am not sure that those people on these threads who claim to know the answers to all these questions really know what they're talking about. I do not know if they are so sure about their facts only because they are so certain in their ideology. I do not know if those people who are so certain in their opposition to the bailout, including our national pundits, are so certain only because otherwise their ox gets gored. So I do not know how to come down on one side or the other based on the motives of the partisans on either side of the bailout question. I simply do not know what their motives really are.
I do know that economics is called the dismal science and now I know why.
Given the state of my ignorance, I am going to embark on a new course, I am going to practice humility."
Later after the bill was law, a posted retrospectively on the matter (tarp) as follows:
[Quoting a FReeper:] Only when the market has corrected the imbalances made during the boom can recovery begin to take place. Government policy can postpone the correction (at the expense of longer term pain), but it can’t prevent the correction from occurring.
"I'm inclined to agree with it because it makes common sense to me. But what about the idea (which in fairness you allude to) that government intervention can change the timeline and provide opportunity for a softer landing granting the market time to make its correction in a less violent way. That might be very desirable because the very violence of a sharp market correction might destroy the entire economic structure. That, at least, was the argument confronting George Bush when he had to make his decision. I think what I have described is approximately George Bush's justification for what he did.[In fact, I think Bush does make that argument in his recent memoir.] The difficulty of predictability in the dismal science because of the difficulty in isolating changing values, because the study is one of moving targets, should provoke a great deal of humility in asserting our doctrines.
George Bush did not have the luxury of academic debate. As I said before, the downside if George Bush was wrong was the loss of a few hundred billion dollars (not counting what the Fed did) and the downside if you were wrong is destruction of our entire financial system and the end of the American way of life. George Bush had to make that decision on the spot. I cannot fault him even though you and I have the luxury of hindsight."
So before we indict and convict John Boehner, or any other Republican, let's put these matters in perspective and let's not forget how they voted on every other issue that came along.
I do not understand the point of this article except to rave.
