Letter to my congress critter

[Alcibiades]

I’m sure you know more about the particulars of the plan to “save the US economy” than I do: the Fed has proposed borrowing money to buy bad mortgage-backed securities from Wall Street firms and assorted other financial institutions. This crisis was supposedly unforseeable, yet it so happens that this administration has been waiting for the current financial crisis to roll out this “bailout,” which is really a massive program of corporate welfare. Yet, according to the laissez-faire, Chicago School orthodoxy that dominates the Republican Party, Wall Street and practically the entire world of business today, this proposed 700 billion bailout is not necessary. If it were something that actually needed to be done, wouldn't the private sector do it? There was a time when big industrialists and financiers would have gotten the capital together to handle this, but now they expect the government to do it. This from the very people who have lectured the poor about a so-called "culture of dependency."

If Congress had impeached the President, this administration would not have had the time to devise yet another corporate welfare scheme to be doled out by the public fisc. This is why impeachment was such an important issue, but it's not too late for this Congress to redeem itself, however. This proposed bailout will not work, and will prove to be a huge liability that will be paid by my kids and grandkids. Please don't fall for this boondoggle.

Please don't cave in on this one. Stand up and be the Democratic leader your years of experience in Washington should have prepared you to be.

[Alcibiades]

1. Should probably mention we all need to write

about this topic. No matter who you have representing you--Democrat, Republican, Sanders or Lieberman--they need to know that there is no reason to let these types make even more money off of their crimes. They plan on keeping the best assets and selling the rest to the treasury, so there's no way we stand to recoup any money out of this. Additionally, there's no way that the same firms that created this situation should be allowed to collect fees for "managing" these assets once they are sold to the government.

[Alcibiades]

2. Now the one I sent to Burr and Dole

I am writing to express my concern that you are about to use taxpayer dollars to bail out the Wall Street elite.

Capitalism means taking risks, and the rewards that go to entrepreneurs have always been justified on the basis of those risks. There is no sound moral or economic justification for taking money out of the pockets of working Americans to bail out rich investment bankers who made bad choices. If you bail out Wall Street this time, you had better be prepared to do it again, because you will have created a culture of dependency: they will know that they can take big gambles with other people's money, secure in the knowledge that their friend, Libby Dole (insert Dicky Burr), will bail them out if the going gets tough. These Wall Street elitists need to pull up their bootstraps and get off the dole.


Well, if you want to know what to say as the voice of taxpayers in North Carolina, then I vote that you should say that you should not spend one penny of my tax money to bail these gamblers out. If this bailout is so important, let the private sector handle it, as they have done in the past. How many times have we heard that government intervention in the economy can only stifle innovation and quash the entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism? You cannot be against socialism when it comes to providing health care to American workers but for it when it comes to bailing out rich investment bankers.

Please do not mortgage my children's future in the name of massive giveaways to people who have always justified their fat paychecks on the basis of being smart. If they are smart enough to earn six and seven figure salaries, they are smart enough to take their licks when they have them coming.

[gratuitous]

3. There's the free market solution, right there

If it's such a good idea to throw money at this "crisis," why isn't the private sector doing it?