House GOP holds up bail-out deal

In a strange time for suddenly standing up for principle and the taxpayers, House Republicans stand in the way of a bail-out deal that can pass Congress. It is strange, because all during the last two years, the House GOP has been the handmaidens of Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid--rarely standing up for anything, until the end of summer, when they blasted the summer recess, when so much business remained undone.

There has been some success from the venture, particularly the focus on Pelosi failing to allow a vote on lifting the ban on off-shore oil drilling. Democrats came back from the recess with the word from constituents that drilling must proceed. The Democratic plan would only have allowed limited drilling, if any at all, but the ban expires Sept. 30 anyway and so by doing nothing, the pro-drilling forces win.

The real problem is that the bail-out focus has been wrong from the gitgo, and now the House GOP is in open rebellion against the rest of the party. The focus should be on how little the bail-out might cost, since restoring liquidity to the nation's financial system should raise housing prices and stabilize the market.

This, as much as anything, is what will assure that taxpayers get hit the least for the bail-out, since the houses underlying the mortgages will be able to be sold off for more than is owed on them. Over a period of time, with wise management of the bail-out, taxpayers could pay little or nothing.

The focus instead has been on the $700 billion cost to taxpayers, which is unlikely even in the worst of circumstances, allowing the whole proposal to be weighted down in presidential and congressional campaign politics--and a quickly approaching recession and national pain the likely result.

John McCain tried to step forward as a statesman and bring a positive resolution, but it may be too bogged down, with too much baggage, to be salvageable.