By: Joe Chidley

Hail to the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted down the US$700-billion government bailout package and added fuel to the Wall Street selloff today.

Maybe they’re not the greatest economic thinkers of their time, but at least the U.S. representatives who voted down the bill know that all politics is local, as Tip O’Neill famously said.

The same guys who pushed through a farm bill that continues to subsidize wealthy farmers—despite rising food costs and despite a veto (twice) from the President this spring—are now clearly more interested in saving their political hides than in ending the economic bloodbath on Wall Street, Main Street and a whole bunch of other streets in the States and around the world.

Say what you will, but you can’t charge them with inconsistency.

No wonder both Obama and McCain were soft-peddling the bailout package in the recent presidential debate—neither of them wanted to get too enthusiastic about what they must have known was a stinker.