By Staff
A bad but likely necessary bill failed in Congress Monday, and Republicans and Democrats spent the rest of the day blaming each other while the Dow Jones industrial average saw its worst point decline in decades, taking with it the retirement accounts, college funds and savings of millions of Americans.
A $700 billion Wall Street bailout sounds bad. It sounds unfair. A lot of Americans are rightly outraged over it.
But it's also the most viable plan on the table, and both parties worked hard all weekend to put safeguards in the bill for taxpayers. In the long run, it's a rescue plan that can work and help the economy for everyone.
That bi-partisan effort dissolved on Monday when the bill fell shy of votes on both sides of the aisle - mainly from congressmen who have their seats on the line in November - and both parties started pointing fingers at the other.
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain wasted no time getting into the political fray, each blaming the other's party for the failure. That was an ironic tactic considering both were vague about their support for the bill in the first place, and neither offered a convincing argument for or against it, nor any alternatives.
In one month we will elect a new president, and we need leadership now more than ever.
Obama and McCain need to prove that they deserve to be president, not just that they deserve our votes by playing it safe about their plans for the economy.
We need these men to step forward with bold statements about how we can save our financial system. We need them to be able to explain to the voters in plain language how their plans will help - and how inaction will be worse than anything.
It's time for leadership. Sadly, in an election year to choose our most important leader, that's lacking.