Contact Your Senators to Protest Government Bailouts

Last week, the US Congress overwhelmingly passed HR3221. Perhaps as early as today, this measure will be taken up in the Senate. The President has pledged his blessing of the measure as well. While I am sure that there are many folks who are happy to see this relief package, I am not one of them. Touted as cornerstones of this bill are tax credits for first-time homebuyers and reduced property taxes for select others. However, this is just window dressing. Potential recipients of the ‘benefits’ of this package must understand that they are not getting anything for free. What is given to the left hand will be taken from the right perhaps through higher taxes or perhaps through inflation. Most likely, though, it will be both.

I am including below a letter I’ve written to my two US Senators on this issue which lays out what I believe are the important aspects of this bill.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you regarding the recent passage of HR 3221 this week otherwise known as the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. This bill passed the US House of Representatives by an overwhelming margin of 272-152 and will soon be taken up by the Senate; perhaps as early as today.

While based on its title and the explanations given in our biased media this would seem to be a bill loaded with good tidings for all, further examination reveals that it is anything but. The major highlights of this bill are as follows:

• The bill extends the statutory national debt ceiling by another $800 billion. Given Congress’ prior record, I am sure this gap will be filled rather quickly. This also sends a very clear signal that the situation will require far greater sums of money than we are being led to believe.
• The bill extends to the US Treasury carte blanche to purchase GSE debt, particularly that of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. Our elected Congress will no longer control the purse strings; rather they will be controlled by unelected, unaccountable political appointees. These two GSE’s own or guarantee a good portion of the $12 Trillion US residential mortgage market. This bill paves the way for the US Treasury to put American taxpayers on the hook for as much bad debt as Fannie and Freddie can come up with.
• The bill requires that all workers in the mortgage industry be fingerprinted. Frankly, I cannot see how fingerprinting anyone would have prevented this mess. This measure falls under the category of encroachments to our civil liberties buried in politically pleasing pieces of legislation. By and large the media failed to mention this provision of the bill.
• The bill also requires that all credit card transactions be reported to the IRS. What part of ‘secure in their homes, papers, and possessions’ didn’t the authors of this egregious measure understand? And what has this got to do with housing anyway?

It is my every intention to make the 2008 election a referendum on the sorts of policies that seek to rob American taxpayers of their hard earned money to bail out all manner of irresponsible financial transactions. Continuing to offload the problems of the US financial system onto future generations is not acceptable. Continuing to pile the liabilities of a Congress drunk on spending money onto future generations is not acceptable. And perhaps most importantly, sneaking provisions into these feel-good pieces of legislation that further strip Americans of their most basic God given rights is also unacceptable.

As Senators, you will have the opportunity to do the right thing at some point in the very near future and doom forever this vile piece of legislation to the recycling bin. Common sense strongly suggests it. The Constitution of the United States demands it.

Sincerely,
Andrew W. Sutton

Before you do anything else this weekend, I urge you to take 5 minutes and write your Senators about this. I am providing a link to the Senate Directory. Use my letter if you want. Take my name out and put yours in if you agree with me. Use it however you wish. I ask for neither credit, nor recognition. It is far more important that this message gets out. Those who support this and similar legislation must be put on notice. We cannot afford to wait any longer. Our children are already on the hook for a bill that grows by $3 Billion each day.

The time for meaningless partisan bickering has passed; the time for meaningful, concerted action has begun. This is not a Democrat/Republican issue, but an issue of freedom. Being saddled with debt which was brought about by unmitigated greed is not freedom. Being fingerprinted because you work for a mortgage broker is not freedom. Having every credit card transaction you conduct logged and reported to the IRS is not freedom. Giving unelected, unaccountable political appointees the power to burden our sons and daughters with trillions of dollars of debt is not freedom.

Today, please make your voices heard. If you don’t, the bailouts will most assuredly get bigger as this ongoing crisis continues to unfold.

Comments

[notsosmart:]

yea-sure.my senators are dodd(like father,like son) &lieberman(a now indepedant democrat that backs mccain).

2008 Jul 28 09:09 AM

[varmit:]

I entirely agree, I have already voiced my displeasure. However I'm
embarased to say I live in Illinois home to Dick Durban and Obama.
As soon as we can sell our home we are moving.

2008 Jul 28 09:13 AM

[nova:]

Our elected officials are very smart. They know that under their stewardship US economy will collapse, therefore, they are preparing the country to a totalitarian control.

Just think. The US government and Congress did not create Super Powerful Enforcement Agency (Home Security Agency) with Zillions dollars to spend just to protect American people against a few hundreds terrorists hiding somewhere in Afghanistan.

2008 Jul 28 10:29 AM

[notsosmart:]

unfortunately the stadium beer(belgium) swillers are still more concerned with sports while the country is being taken from them & us.dumb & dumber americans is what these political hacks want & they are getting it.

2008 Jul 28 02:32 PM

[tuckfinitee:]

Everything you say Mr Sutton is correct but you're omitting the worst. Loans, guarantees, tax breaks, etc to artificially prop up house prices benefits a few people while everyone pays a tremendous cost. I'm talking about the costs of command economics and redistribution. It directly undermines the concept of money. Money is an information system. It tells about people's needs and wants, about the relative value of things. It keeps score of past performance and attempts to predict future production. It measures the utility of things and people. And as the material world changes it makes adjustments. So what will happen in the future when people make decisions about living arrangements? A lot of them will make mistakes because of distorted information. Hardship, foreclosures, real estate busts existed long before ARMs. Instead of letting the market bottom out, getting the bad actors off the stage, restoring market discipline we're going to do more of the same. I have no doubt future disasters will be blamed on unicorns or capitalism, whatever. Unicorn capitalism?

2008 Jul 28 09:59 PM

[whidbey:]

Why do you assume they can read? Mine are so busy with public relations I doubt they know what is happening in the Senate, or any place else for that matter.

2008 Oct 14 05:32 PM