Why the Bailout Bill Really Failed

    All sorts of notions have been put forward as to why the bailout bill failed, with fingers pointed just about everywhere. But the real reason is a rather simple one. Under our constitutional scheme, Congress isn't designed to act that fast -- with the exception of a declaration of war. The idea that a Treasury Secretary could announce a crisis that no one can yet really see, come up with a plan that would largely give him enormous and unpreceented power to solve it, and that Congress would go along immediately was crazy. Our Founding Fathers envisioned a system where Congress would act deliberately, if at all. The remarkable thing wasn't that the bailout bill didn't pass; it's that it got 205 votes and almost did become law. That's not to say there isn't a real credit crunch that demands a solution. It's only that our system, for better or worse, isn't supposed to work in the way the proponents of this legislation wanted it to work. And, in fact, it didn't.