The Wall Street bail-out

I've just read Jim DeMint's statement on the Wall Street bail-out at NoodleFood and I was so impressed that I sent it to my senators, Coburn and Inhofe:

Dear Senator -

I am writing as a constituent to ask you to oppose the Bush Administration's request for $700 billion to bail out Wall Street. The healthiest thing for our economy would be to allow the market to work and let those firms deal privately with the consequences of their own actions. I don't believe in accepting responsiblity for other people's actions and I have no desire to see my taxes used to help some Wall Street firms out of a situation which they created, not me. The answer to the current economic situation is not handouts to Wall Street tied to more regulations. The answer is to get the government OUT of the economy.

I'm sure that I disagree with Senator DeMint of South Carolina on other issues, but on this issue I have seen no better statement of the truth about this situation than his recent press release.

In this instance, Senator DeMint speaks for me, as well.

Rob Abiera
Oklahoma City


http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=8b42ecf0-d725-fd9c-d51f-586e39c6c94a

DEMINT OPPOSES WALL STREET BAILOUT
Plan does not solve the problems that caused the current credit crunch, and could make them much worse

Washington D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) announced his opposition to the $700 billion plan proposed by the Bush Administration to bailout Wall Street.

"After reviewing the Administration's proposed bailout plan, I believe it is completely unacceptable. This plan does nothing to address the misguided government policies that created this mess and it could make matters much worse by socializing an entire sector of the U.S. economy. This plan fails to oversee or regulate the government failures that led to this crisis. Instead it greatly increases the role for Secretary Paulson whose market predictions have been consistently wrong in the last year, and provides corporate welfare for investment firms on Wall Street that don't want to disclose their assets and sell them to private investors for market rates. Most Americans are paying their bills on time and investing responsibly and should not be forced to pay for the reckless actions of some on Wall Street, especially when no one can guarantee this will solve our current problems."

"This plan will not only cause our nation to fall off the debt cliff, it could send the value of the dollar into a free-fall as investors around the world question our ability to repay our debts. It's also very likely that this plan will extend the cycle of bailouts, encouraging other companies to behave in reckless ways that create the need for even more bailouts, triggering an endless run on our treasury. This plan may make things look better for Wall Street in the next couple months, but the long-term consequences to our economy could be disastrous.

"There are much better ways of dealing with this problem than forcing American taxpayers to pay for every asset some investor doesn't want anymore. We should start by reforming government policies and programs that created this mess, including the Federal Reserve's easy money policy, the congressional charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act. Then Congress should pass a number of permanent and proven pro-growth reforms to encourage capital formation and boost asset values. We need to make permanent reductions in the corporate tax and the capital gains tax rates. We have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, which encourages companies to take jobs and investment overseas."

"It's a sad fact, but Americans can no longer trust the economic information they are getting from this Administration. The Administration said the bailout of Bear Stearns would stop the bleeding and solve the problem, but they were wrong. They said $150 billion in new government spending using rebate checks would solve the problem, but they were wrong again. They said new authority to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would solve the problem without being used, but they were wrong again. Now they want us to trust them to spend nearly a trillion dollars on more government bailouts. It's completely irresponsible and I cannot support it."