This will be my first entry about the bailout bill. I'm going to tell you flat out right now, I'm against it and I'm going to give straight talk about it. On this issue I strongly disagree with my presidential choice, John McCain. However, Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders also support this flawed action. I commend the Senators and Members of the House who stood up for the American people and voted no.
You as an American and especially if you are a young American should be furious that the bill passed. We elect our leaders to fight for us not pander to overpaid executives and big business. Now that the bill is passed, we can add almost a trillion dollars to our national deficit without any guarantee that this will even work. Either way it won't be the our leaders in Washington that have to pay off this huge debt, it will be my generation, my kid's generation, their kid's generation, and so on that will have to handle the mess that is accruing now. The first time the bill came up, the House rejected it and the Senate passed it. With our check and balance system, both chambers of congress have to approve it. To get by this, the bill was "sweetened" to get individual members (mostly Democrats I might add) to support it the second time around. Basically, our esteemed leaders BOUGHT the votes of several members using OUR TAX DOLLARS to get this blank check to the government passed. Below are just a few of the incentives that were put into the bill.
> $192 million for the rum producers of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands
> $128 million for car racing tracks
> $10 million for small film and television productions
> Special tax incentives to makers of certain wooden toy arrows to children
My first reaction was, "Are you kidding me?" I am going to get into the bad economics of the bailout bill later but this post is just to show how sometimes are leaders can act so poorly. They let America down. The young people of America as well as the unborn are going to have to somehow pay all this off in the future. Even if our leaders were positive that this plan could help our struggling economy, they should have made the bill exclusively for the economy. It is absolutely wrong to fill a bill with pork to buy votes. People are already suffering in our economy, that's a fact. Then our leaders in Washington expect to use our tax dollars to pay for these "projects". Its wrong. Below is a link to the House clerk. You can see how your representative voted. If they voted nay, thank them and if they voted yea, you might want to rethink who you are voting for this November. This is my first post on the bailout bill, more will follow on the economics of the issue. This one was focused more on the behavior of our leaders.
When was it ever the government's responsibility to intervene in our business? As John Locke, the great philosopher wrote in his Two Treatises of Government (which influenced our Constitution greatly) " Government has no other end, but the preservation of property." These private businesses were failing and for good, obvious reasons. The fact that our government needs to make taxpayers responsible for these problems is horrendous and contrary to the responsibilities of our government. This is an act that cannot be permitted (although it is too late) if we wish to retain the standards we set for ourselves in creating this great nation.
Government has no other end, but the preservation of property. - John Locke
Although I agree that the bailout is an abomination (to put it mildly), couldn't one use Locke's logic to support the bailout? After all, banks and the capital associated with them are property, and so the government's actions are protecting that property.
I do agree with all that you are saying and since the bailout bill is so complex I'll have several posts about it. I agree that government needs to stay out of this. Besides that we cannot reward bad business. Also we are setting a terrible precedent for the future. I'd invite you to subscribe to my blog. I will have more on this subject in the days to come. Thanks for comments!
I agree- and Bush must be a closet Democrat if he signed that bill.
People used scare tactics to get Americans and Congresspersons on the side of the bill- they claimed that "we can't just do nothing." I totally disagree- we really should have done nothing.
I should clarify, though, that I don't support the bailout bill for different reasons than you. I think wanting revenge for what Wall Street bank CEOs have done to our economy is not constructive and the wrong reason to oppose the bailout- besides, there's the possibility that Wall Street's greed wasn't actually responsible for the crisis.