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A financial panic, and four who resisted it
Congressman Tom Petri, R-Fond du Lac, got it right when he identified Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan for bad banks -- or, to be more precise, bad bankers -- as "half-baked."
Congress failed to take the time to craft a smart response to the economic turbulence of recent weeks. For the most part, members of the House and Senate allowed themselves to be cajoled into doing "something" when they did not begin to understand what that something was, how it would work, or if it would do anything but redistribute hundreds of billions of American tax dollars upward to CEOs who are either incompetent or crooked -- or both.
"Everyone agrees we need to do something. It doesn't mean we should panic," explained Congressman Steve Kagen, D-Appleton, who urged House leaders to consider innovative -- and decidedly less costly -- proposals by experts such as former FDIC Chairman William Isaac, who oversaw the successful federal responses to economic troubles in the 1980s.
Unfortunately, after the House wisely tried to slow the process down a week ago Monday, the Senate panicked on Thursday and the House reversed course and endorsed Paulson's plan on Friday.
Four members of Wisconsin's congressional delegation kept their heads: U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and U.S. Reps. James Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, Petri and Kagen.
It should be noted that Feingold is generally seen as the most progressive member of the Wisconsin delegation and Sensenbrenner as the most conservative. Petri and Kagen are both moderates.
What does that tell us? Common sense, especially when it comes to money matters, is not a Democratic or Republican possession. It is not a liberal or a conservative calculation. It is the product of an ability to thoughtfully assess what is happening, even when others panic.
Feingold, Sensenbrenner, Kagen and Petri displayed it last week. They deserve high marks. As for the other five members of Wisconsin's delegation, they deserve hard questions and the challenges they will get upon returning to a state that is appropriately skeptical about a bad bailout for bad banks.
Clockwise from top left: Petri, Kagen, Sensenbrenner, Feingold
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