Accountability

Many members of Congress insisted on adding caps on executive compensation as part of the bailout plan, to provide at least some small measure of accountability as we bailed out folks who had made fortunes by making bad lending decisions from the consequences of their folly. I've got no problem with that; if you're a big company and you go to the government hat in hand for help, then strings can and should be attached to deter such begging. Some politicians also, predictably, called for criminal investigations and civil lawsuits, as if the core problem was a bunch of law-breaking rather than just a combination of perverse incentives and bad business judgment. The biggest and most appropriate consequence for such folks is to LOSE THEIR SHIRTS when the bad bets they made fail to pay off. I fear that any bailout will not ensure that happens, but at least those accountability measures added to the package before it was defeated are a start. But they don't go far enough.

I want some accountability for the politicians who got us into this mess. I want accountability for Chris Dodd and all the other Friends of Angelo. I want accountability for all the politicians who fought Richard Baker tooth and nail while he steadfastly pursued (and ultimately exposed) the fundamental corruptions of Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I want accountability for the Republican leadership who neither supported Rep. Baker nor gave him the power needed to accomplish further reforms.

If this is really that big a crisis, if the political decisions made and not made over the past 15 years have gotten us to this point, I want resignations. I want loss of committee positions. I want both parties to clean house and put honest folks in charge. Yes, there's honest folks in Congress... the problem is that the fat cats and sleazeballs get the leadership positions. Pelosi wants this bill passed so bad? Tell Harry Reid to remove Dodd from the banking committee. Bush wants this bill that badly? Tell the GOP in Congress to put people like Mike Pence in charge of committees. I'm not supporting a bail-out until I see some evidence that Congress has looked in the mirror and accepted its role in causing the problems.