Let The Banks Die

So says a couple of GOP senators:

NEW YORK: John McCain and Richard Shelby, two high-profile Republican senators, said Sunday that the government should allow a number of the biggest U.S. banks to fail.

"Close them down, get them out of business," Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said on the ABC television program "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." "If they're dead, they ought to be buried."

While the Alabama senator did not say which banks should shut down, he suggested that Citigroup might be on that list, saying the bank has "always been a problem child."

McCain, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," echoed that sentiment without identifying banks. McCain, who lost the U.S. presidential election in November, accused the Treasury Department of avoiding the "hard decision" to let "these banks fail."

And yet John McCain voted for the bank bailout. His campaign effectively ended the day he suspended campaigning and rushed back to Washington to "solve" the banking problem. He was ridiculed by Obama and other Democrats and lost whatever momentum he had up to that point.

He's probably right...this time. The banks are sucking up billions in bailout with no resolution in sight. It may be time to just pay them off up to the insurance limits and walk away.