Democrats Admit Cluelessness on Economy

This shouldn't surprise anyone. The Democrats in Congress, who have been busy bashing the Bush Administration over the credit meltdown and death throes of financial services companies caught in the subprime mess, have admitted they don't have any clue what to do and they're not going to do anything.

They're going to adjourn without taking any action of their own.

The Democratic-controlled Congress, acknowledging that it isn’t equipped to lead the way to a solution for the financial crisis and can’t agree on a path to follow, is likely to just get out of the way.

Lawmakers say they are unlikely to take action before, or to delay, their planned adjournments — Sept. 26 for the House of Representatives, a week later for the Senate. While they haven’t ruled out returning after the Nov. 4 elections, they would rather wait until next year unless Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who are leading efforts to contain the crisis, call for help.

One reason, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday, is that “no one knows what to do” at the moment.

They're looking to the Bush Administration to solve the problem for them.

Of course, this is also a cynical ploy figuring that they can leave the mess squarely in the hands of the Republican president and his officials, including Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Democrats have nothing to offer except soundbites attacking the Administration, all while they offer absolutely nothing.

The sad thing is that doing nothing might actually be the better course of action since meddling with the markets actually brought about the crisis in the first place by leaning on lenders to issue loans to those who were incapable of repaying and then watching as lenders and the financial services companies repackaging those loans and issuing secondary paper to spread the risk without understanding what risk was actually present and how the real estate market was overvalued.

Of course, this is the same bunch of Democrats who abdicated their role in setting energy policy for the country because they refused to accept the idea of drilling for oil and natural gas within the US and its offshore energy deposits, running up energy prices in the country in the process.