Brooks on the Bailout

In his Times column today, David Brooks goes after Congress for failing to pass the bailout-

House leaders of both parties got wrapped up in their own negotiations, but did it occur to any of them that it might be hard to pass a bill fairly described as a bailout to Wall Street? Was the media darling Barney Frank too busy to notice the 95 Democrats who opposed his bill? Pelosi’s fiery speech at the crucial moment didn’t actually kill this bill, but did she have to act like a Democratic fund-raiser at the most important moment of her career?

And let us recognize above all the 228 who voted no — the authors of this revolt of the nihilists. They showed the world how much they detest their own leaders and the collected expertise of the Treasury and Fed. They did the momentarily popular thing, and if the country slides into a deep recession, they will have the time and leisure to watch public opinion shift against them.
...

The only thing now is to try again — to rescue the rescue. There’s no time to find a brand-new package, so the Congressional plan should go up for another vote on Thursday, this time with additions that would change its political prospects. Leaders need to add provisions that would shore up housing prices and directly help mortgage holders. Martin Feldstein and Lawrence Lindsey both have good proposals of the sort that could lead to a plausible majority coalition. Loosening deposit insurance rules would also be nice.


I largely agree with Brooks on this, with a couple exceptions. First, Frank and the Dems knew, and indeed negotiated for "no votes" from their caucus. They realized the bill wasn't popular, and were trying to get enough house republicans with safe seats on board so that Dems in unsafe seats could vote no… not a case of Frank being too busy with media grand-standing that he didn't realize some dems weren't going to vote. Second, it's interestingly out of Brooks's conservative character to advocate larding the bill with extra provisions to bail out homeowners… not very free-market there, although it would probably allow the bill to pass by getting more dems, thereby making it not a bi-partisan bill, but a big liberal democratic handout that Brooks can get 20 columns out of criticizing for the next few years