Approval ratings for Congress have been falling the past week, presumably because those who were sampled were not happy about the House's failure earlier this week to pass the Paulson-Frank-Dodd plan.

But I thought the majority didn't want the plan.  If that's really the case, shouldn't Congress' approval ratings be rising?

I know that I'm going take serious grief for saying this, but I'm very happy with what Congress is doing this week on the Paulson plan: it's job.

The legislation sent to Capital Hill last weekend by the Treasury was little more that an outline.  Essentially, it said "Give us $700 billion and stay out of our face."  That would have been ridiculous if it was only $700.  But at $700 billion (sorry, I just can't help but italicize that number), it was totally preposterous.

A week or so of asking questions, of demanding accountability, and of inserting at least some taxpayer safeguards is understandable and absolutely commendable.  And most (but not all) of what I'm seeing coming out of the legislative process seems to be reasonable.

And you absolutely know that Congress would have been blamed for not doing this had the legislation been enacted as submitted by Paulson without any of these additional provisions.  This especially would have been the case if the legislation was enacted as Paulson submitted and it didn't work.

Via the Real Time Economics blog, Daniel Gross makes the point from my recent post on the profligate vs. the prudent better than I did in his Moneybox column on Monday, "A Tax Break for Bubble Heads."  His vehicle is the legislation moving through Congress to provide tax breaks and assistance to the housing industry.  Here's the key excerpt:

Wall Street constantly complains about how Washington incessantly debates issues instead of acting on them.  That's why its almost comical to watch the current situation as Wall Street continues to debate whether there is or will be a recession while Washington has already enacted legislation to deal with it.

My day job is managing director in a communications agency. That means I spend a great deal of time thinking about what someone should say, how they should say it, and what will actually be heard by those who hear it.

I also just as frequently wonder why someone hasn't said something.