The New York Mag recapped the rescue bill’s failure pretty concisely stating these as the four reasons:
1) Bad Marketing – “From the start, the Bush administration did not do enough to emphasize
the point that taxpayers would get at least some of the money back,”
writes Ben Pershing in the Washington Post
2) Constituents – Most Americans, it must be said, have never understood the mechanics and therefore the gravity of this situation.
3) Politics – As if the overwhelming negative reaction from their constituents in an
election year wasn’t enough to scare the crap out of Congress, there
was also the fact that some of them, namely Republicans, were grappling
with an existential as well as fiscal crisis: They’d supported
deregulation their entire lives! Now they were supposed to chuck it all
and become socialists?
4) The President – The American people have very little faith in George Bush….His approval ratings are at an all-time low…His support was ultimately more of a negative than a positive.
For me the Constituents and Politics were the top two reasons. If you want, read the whole article “Why Did the Rescue Bill Fail?“.
Ramblings of a Liberal Hypersomniac 