Senator Shelby says No

to the proposed bailout plan.  The New York Times:

Some lawmakers have made clear that they will not vote for the bailout plan under virtually any terms. “I didn’t want to be in the negotiations because I object to the basic principles of this,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, who would normally be his party’s point man.

Pressed about his role, Mr. Shelby replied, “My position is ‘No.’ “

Republicans were able to get some changes into the bill which undoubtedly makes it more taxpayer friendly but the bottom line is still $700 billion.  John at Power Line recaps the changes:

So, what did the Republicans achieve? They put strings on the availability of funds beyond $250 billion, requiring fresh Congressional action for the last $350 billion. They added a requirement that Treasury establish an insurance program which would be funded by participating companies. This may be a big deal; I'm not sure exactly how it is intended to operate or how much, in the end, it will reduce the exposure to the taxpayer. They established a bipartisan oversight committee, rather than a committee run only by the Democrats, as Dodd and Frank had proposed. They took out special interest boondoggles for unions and for ACORN, the voter fraud organization. They removed a provision that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to arbitrarily reduce mortgages, an ill-conceived measure that would have aggravated a central cause of the current crisis, the difficulty of evaluating mortgage-backed securities. And they mandated a GAO study on the impact of the mark-to-market accounting rule, implicitly encouraging regulatory agencies to revise or abandon that principle, which is a key reason why banks that have little to do with the origins of the crisis are currently threatened.

The insurance approach was always central to the House Republicans' alternative to the Paulson and Frank-Dodd proposals. Whether their impact on the final product is profound, as opposed to merely helpful, depends on whether the insurance program is implemented and becomes a significant brake on taxpayer exposure.

Here's a quick definition of mark-to-market.  Some have advocated suspending mark-to-market but Republicans were only able to get a GAO study on the issue.  Several bloggers have weighed in on the impact mark-to-market accounting has had on the current crisis.  Suspension of the rule was included in The Republican Study Committee's alternative plan.  Unfortunately it didn't make the cut.

Indiana Representative Mike Pence also opposes the bailout.  Here is his letter to colleagues explaining why:

Dear Colleagues:

Our nation has been confronted by a serious crisis in our financial markets. The President and this Congress were right to act with all deliberate speed in addressing this crisis.

We now have a deal that promises to bring near-term stability to our financial turmoil, but at what price?

Economic freedom means the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail.

The decision to give the federal government the ability to nationalize almost every bad mortgage in America interrupts this basic truth of our free market economy.

Republicans improved this bill but it remains the largest corporate bailout in American history, forever changes the relationship between government and the financial sector, and passes the cost along to the American people. I cannot support it.

Before you vote, ask yourself why you came here and vote with courage and integrity to those principles.

If you came here because you believe in limited government and the freedom of the American marketplace, vote in accordance with those convictions.

Duty is ours, outcomes belong to God.

We have fought the good fight. Now we need to finish the race and make sure that posterity and the American people know there were conservatives who opposed the leviathan state in this dark hour.

And if you do this I promise you, I will stand with you and, I believe with all my heart, the American people will stand with you as well.

MIKE PENCE

My personal feeling is that nothing good will come from this.  Many of those responsible for this mess are the same ones crafting the bill to get us out of it.  Texas Rainmaker takes us on a little trip down memory lane:

Let’s just take stroll down memory lane and see who was doing what in Washington, oh say, about 5 years ago….

September 11, 2003
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.
…
Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

TR has much more.  Be sure to read it all and click the links.  Democrats are "talking up" accountability in the bailout plan:

Senator Dodd said discussions were closer in finalising a deal.

''We're very much in the process to get that, but it's not done, we're not there I tell you that, but we're getting there,'' he said.

Some of the issues making headway in the plan discussions included ''oversight, transparency, accountability, executive compensation'', Senator Dodd said.

Where is their accountability?  Senator Dodd?

But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.    

Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.           

Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.    

There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.           

Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that's worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess.    

Voters have a golden opportunity to avert another mess. 

McCain/Palin 2008.