The only reason we'll not be gnashing our teeth about this stupid bailout (call it a "rescue" if you like, as long as you acknowledge it's a rescue of failed financiers rather than the US economy) is that the devastation from failed finance dwarfs our wasted $700 billion, as incidentally do the remnants of the New Deal. Dr. Tannenbaum has never liked the bailout, and he's pointed out a USA Today article discussing how poorly Paulson has managed the Uncle Sam Trust Fund for the Untrustworthy.
Tannenbaum right to highlight that House Republicans were the only major voices in politics against the voices, but I don't think that provides them much exoneration. For one thing, they're the rump of the tidal wave that led to this disaster in the first place. And they certainly didn't show much ideological backbone. In week one of the bailout drama they were as much empowered in opposition by the masses of angry constituents against the bill as they were in understanding that it would throw good money after bad. In week two everyone panicked, including the populace; congress loaded up the pork and House Republicans gave it up smooth. So much for the guardians of fiscal liberalism (AKA "conservatism" in US political lingo). If Obama wins and proves even a fiscal moderate, the deep water of of macroeconomics will dilute the cost of that awful bill. And he still has a chance to make it a completely forgotten bit of nonsense. The US economy needs a fundamental restructuring. Our energy and agricultural policy is abysmally broken, and we need to own up to the bankruptcy of social security, the byzantine details and lack of progressiveness in our tax code (and I strongly believe that progressive taxation is not incompatible with fiscal liberalism). It will be nasty medicine, but just a spoonful (just a spoonful, dammit--I know it's hard--he's a big fellow) of Keynes will help the medicine go down.
The questions, of course, are: will we give Obama the mandate he needs to effect transformation, and will Obama have the courage to take us up on it. Ah well. Here's to all the flavor of hope that's been in the water lately. For our sakes it had better not be Kool-Aid.