Mike Ross
Yes, the big financial bail-out passed the Senate last night and the new bill will go to the House of Representatives (both Arkansas senators, along with the two presidential nominees, voted in favor).
But Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross is among the House Democrats who are not enthused by the new provisions that have been added to the package, he tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Ross is part of the self-styled “fiscally conservative” Blue Dog Coalition and he says his concern is the effect the bail-out will have on the national debt with the addition of tax credits and other sweeteners used to draw votes in the Senate. Ross and the entire Arkansas House delegation voted in favor of the unsweetened version that failed in the House earlier this week.
Other stuff: Last evening, Jason Tolbert at the Tolbert Report read the Senate legislation and posted his thoughts.
Real Clear Politics, as essential a resource for political stuff as you can imagine, has a good analysis of the political dynamics of the bail-out, and why John McCain is suffering in the polls these last two weeks:
I think McCain has suffered a deterioration in his poll position for a simple reason: he’s the Republican. George W. Bush is the President of the United States. He is responsible for the state of the nation. He’s not held in good esteem right now, and he’s a Republican. From a public opinion perspective, it does not matter so much that the Democrats control Congress. The buck stops with Bush; Bush is a Republican; McCain is a Republican; McCain suffers.
RCP writes that, if McCain is to regain ground in the polls, the storyline on the economy needs to change and fast. Noted: Mike Huckabee, speaking in Tulsa, says that ain’t likely to happen.
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