By January, whoever wins the White House, it will be clear that Washington cannot cure the disease by relying on one smart guy from Wall Street. A new federal agency will be needed to supervise the bailout and restore defined public purposes and enforce them on the system. The government will have to assert its powers forcefully, because by then it will be obvious the “voluntary” approach helped some losers to become winners, but it neglected to save the country.

Thanks for the second comment. I didn’t know about the Presidential Town Hall Meeting, but now I’ll give some it some thought and maybe submit a question or two. I think I’ll just copy your questions on Iraq. I think they’re great.

Regarding “The Economy,” I’ll probably ask something like, how would you use government influence and control to guide or regulate the financial markets to correct the recession and prevent future “greed is good” advocates from destroying middle class savings and retirement programs?

Health Care? When are you bozos going to convert the present pay-to-play health care delivery system that bankrupts so many people (who, when faced with a life or death choice, choose expensive treatment) into a decent program of socialized medicine? That’s what I’ll ask, but I may leave out the “you bozos” part.

Log into Mydebates.org and submit your questions. Today (Tuesday) is the last day.

Here are the ones I’ve submitted.
1. IRAQ:

To: Senator McCain: “You speak often of departing Iraq only with “Victory”. What does “Victory” in Iraq mean to you?”

To: Senator Obama: “What conditions in Iraq would lead you to begin an orderly withdrawal? What is your expectation of what will happen there after such a withdrawal?”

2. ECONOMY:

We now face the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Historians and Economists differ on their assessment of the causes for the Depression and the reasons why it became as deep and long lasting as it did.

To Both Candidates: “What is your assessment of what caused the Great Depression, and why it became as long and deep as it did?

What parallels do you see with the current crisis, and how do they affect your position on the Wall Street Bail Out?”

3. HEALTH CARE

Health and Human Services Department recently proposed a ruling (HHS OS 2008-0011-000) intended to strengthen Provider Conscience protections with respect to medical service providers. A NY TIMES Op. Ed piece on 9/19/08 “Blocking Care for Women” asserted that it will reduce availability and accessibility of birth control prescriptions.

To Both Candidates: “What is your view with respect to an appropriate balance between Provider Conscience protections and Women’s Reproductive Rights?”

What would you like to ask the candidates? You can post them to the debate site, who knows, maybe they’ll be asked.

Do the house Dems pass the bailout without house Republicans thereby loosing the election for Obama?

No one likes the bailout notion.

Do Dems make a new bailout with ability of bankruptcy judges to modify conditions of foreclosed mortgages, and to formally and finally forbid naked shorting?

What the Repubicans were holding out for was another tax cut on capital gains (so the speculators who bought bad paper can now not pay taxes on the gains they get from higher valuations after bailout?) They (house republicans) are after all, principled folk). Should the house dems bow to that tax cut to get a 50/50 vote on this deal?

What happens if we don’t do a bail out? I mean, it’s easy enough to say that the economy is in serious trouble, and it’s George’s fault. Sure, who wouldn’t disagree with that?

But, that doesn’t answer the question of what is to be done now.

I grew up on a historiography that blamed the Great Depression on speculators and crooks and lack of regulation. It blamed the depth and worldwide spread of Depression on lack of timely govt intervention by “free market” Hoover. It praised the New Deal for fixing it through innovative intervention by FDR. Others said that actually the only thing that stopped the free fall of the Great Depression was WWII. That solution isn’t really available to us now (yes, thanks to George). So….

Now do we say Democratic party should step aside and watch the crash just to show how bad George is? It could be really bad, and then who’s fault will it be for not acting?

Or, do we let the market fall until the next administration and give a bailout to someone else in the hope that non-timely intevention in the market will resolve it?

We’re between a rock and a really hard place. We can fuss about the bruising, but how DO we get out of it? “A pox on both their houses” doesn’t get us anywhere.

Where I live unemployment is already 11%. Months of fires this summer meant that our businesses lost all of their tourist season. Our County government and the only hospital within an hour’s drive are already on the brink of bankruptcy.

I don’t know the answer to this question.