"Just Say No!" to the Bailout John McCain!

"Just Say No!" to the Bailout John McCain! Posted by John Barnhart on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 5:11:01 AM

Before reading this, I want it understood, this is not the official position of www.letsgetthisright.com or anyone else, this is MY PERSONAL OPINION and does not represent my position as a staffer of www.letsgetthisright.com

If one reads just the title of the bill that was voted down yesterday it has absolutely nothing to do with the government’s attempted bail out to the tune of $700 Billion dollars. For those who are unaware here is the title of the "bailout bill"

BILL TITLE: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes

(what the hell... how can anyone make heads or tails of that title referencing a bailout bill???)

No American should be in favor of this bail out - you don't fix a temporary problem within a capitalist economy with a permanent socialist solution. Hell, even 95 democrats agreed yesterday that the bailout is the WRONG solution.

This is one of those occasions where I DO NOT support the President’s position!

President Bush, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Rahm Emanuel, John Murtha, Charlie Rangel, and a host of other liberals are in favor of this ridiculous bill, the Republicans who supported it should be ashamed and do not represent true conservative values.

In my own personal opinion, if John McCain wants to have any hope of winning the White House and thereby help Sarah Palin as a potential future President, he should immediately separate his position from that of the President, Secretary Paulson, Senator Obama, as well as the Democrats and Republicans who support the bailout.

I like McCain, I like Palin and they are the ticket I am supporting, but the folks at the top of the campaign who are giving them advice need to hush, stop pushing a bad agenda, and listen to the voice of the American people on this one and let John McCain and Sarah Palin act accordingly.

Let us, "We The People" figure out how to get this right, by allowing us to participate in the general economy to fix it over time, the bailout bill is the equivalent of using morphine to cure a bad flu bug, the cure is not only the wrong prescription, it is more deadly than the illness itself.

John McCain needs to be the Maverick that many Americans like, respect and are comfortable voting for.

Senator John McCain should immediately come out and "Just Say No" to the bail out and suggest the following or something very similar to it;

1. Suspend the Mark-to-Market Rule - If short selling can be suspended on 799 stocks (an arbitrary number and a warning of the rule by bureaucrats which is coming under the Paulson plan), the mark-to-market rule can be suspended for six months and then replaced with a more accurate three year rolling average mark-to-market.

2. Repeal Sarbanes Oxley - It failed with Freddy Mac. It failed with Fannie Mae. It failed with Bear Stearns. It failed with Lehman Brothers. It failed with AIG. It is crippling our entrepreneurial economy. I spent three days this week in Silicon Valley. Everyone agreed Sarbanes-Oxley was crippling the economy. One firm told me they would bring more than 20 companies public in the next year if the law was repealed. Its Sarbanes-Oxley’s $3 million per startup annual accounting fee that is keeping these companies private.

3. Match our competitors in China and Singapore by going to a zero capital gains tax - Private capital will flood into Wall Street with zero capital gains and it will come at no cost to the taxpayer. Even if you believe in a static analytical model in which lower capital gains taxes mean lower revenues for the Treasury, a zero capital gains tax costs much less than the Paulson plan. And if you believe in a historic model (as I do), a zero capital gains tax would lead to a dramatic increase in federal revenue through a larger, more competitive and more prosperous economy.

4. Immediately pass an “all of the above” energy plan - that is designed to bring home $500 billion of the $700 billion a year we are sending overseas. With that much energy income the American economy would boom and government revenues would grow.

5. Immediately DEMAND investigations - of those responsible for directly influencing the current economic situation due to either direct action or inaction, be they captains of industry, lobbyists or politicians and as McCain would say "make them famous" and let the FBI, the Justice Dept. and the Federal Court systems follow up from there.

None of these suggestions are new, they are supported by Conservative politicians and business men like New Gingrich (who actually made those proposals on Sept. 21st - See Forbes Magazine and National Review Online from that date) and there are also plenty of "hip and trendy" socially left "pop culture icons" like Donald Trump who favor the concept of "Just Say No" as well.

There is NO REASON for John McCain to support a bailout bill that both George Bush and Barack Obama support and 83% to 86% of Americans on both sides DO NOT support!

John McCain MUST be on the RIGHT side of history on this bill, I say call and email the McCain campaign, and his Senate offices and tell them to tell John McCain to "Just Say No!"

5353 North 16th Street Suite 105 Phoenix, AZ 85016 Main: 602-952-2410 Fax: 602-952-8702

4703 South Lakeshore Drive Suite 1 Tempe, AZ 85282 Main: 480-897-6289 Fax: 480-897-8389

407 West Congress Street Suite 103 Tucson, AZ 85701 Main: 520-670-6334 Fax: 520-670-6637

241 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Main: 202-224-2235 Fax: 202-228-2862

TOTALS AYES 205 NOES 228 QUESTION: On Concurring in Senate Amendment With An Amendment

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Here are a few questions from one of those ignorant rubes who just doesn’t understand why this bill is so necessary:

We (on the right) all seem to agree that government policies are largely responsible for the problems that markets face. Since nothing in this bill addresses any of those harmful policies, what prevents bailouts from becoming a regular expense of the Federal Government?
I hear talk about “protecting the taxpayer.” If Congress has recently discovered a source of funds other than the source of every government dollar in the history of government, I am all for it. I know they are smarter than me, but I am pretty sure I am still on the hook for all of this. Am I wrong?
I also hear that “taxpayers could end up profiting!” So government will invest in free markets and come out a winner? Is direct government ownership of private assets really a good thing? Because, gosh, government could go buy stock in Monsanto, McDonald’s or any number of strong companies, couldn’t it? Taxpayers would profit! I can’t even imagine any “unintended consequences,” from that - can you?
Conservatives used to argue that government spending, in and of itself, harmed the economy because every billion the government spends is sucked out of the free market. How is this $700 billion any different?
Related to the above, how much harm to the economy will be caused by this massive government spending bill? More to the point, will that harm be enough to offset whatever “help” this bill may offer?
No matter how you couch it, or excuse it, or modify it, this is a massive injection of government control into the economy. That is called socialism. If socialism is the only answer now, why isn’t it the answer every other time?
Didn’t Herbert Hoover inject capital into bank and mortgage associations through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation? My history is a little rusty... how did that work out again?
FDR got rid of Hoover’s RFC, right? So, learning the lessons of history, there’s no way that a “bad but necessary” policy could be made even worse by a subsequent liberal administration, right? There’s no way they would say something like: “this bill didn’t go far enough?”
I believe that government is largely responsible for the problems. Why should I believe government can solve those same problems? Isn’t that exactly the sort of pattern that conservatives used to think was the predictable result of trusting in leftist policies?
I started out by admitting that I am an ignorant rube. I also believe that Barney Frank does not know any more about finance and economics than I do. But that isn’t a question. Here goes: does Barney Frank really know what’s best for me, or for the economy?
For liberals and “populists” who say this was all caused by “greed,” how does government absorbing the losses after years of profits change the incentives for the same thing to happen again?

I do have a lot more questions, but this is a pretty good start, I think. Maybe others on this thread can pass some of these questions along to those people who are so much smarter than rubes like us, and Mark Levin, and Arthur Laffer, and Walter Williams.

None of your suggestions will help like the bailout bill. They are all good suggestions, especially the first, but they don't solve the problem.

YES ABSOLUTELY IT IS A CRISIS.

The reason it is a crisis is that these mortgages or the CMO's and CDO's form the asset base for banks. The value of those securities are almost non-existent now and that means the banks don't have enough assets to guarantee the deposits they are holding.

If their asset/deposit ratio gets too low the FDIC has to step in and take over. If the FDIC takes over too many banks it will fail. If people start to fear that their money is not safe they will run take their money out of banks. If they start doing that we are FINISHED. There is no where near enough money in banks to withstand large withdrawals.

We must fix this crisis. This is not a drill. This is not a hoax. If we do not fix this, there will be no economy and even those who are piously proud of their fiscal responsibility will be BROKE.

If the banks fail, even those with savings are lost. If their is rapid inflation or deflation the money they have saved will go up in smoke. This is not a simple, or shallow concept. Even if you don't understand it, it is very very very dangerous for each and every citizen of the US and even the rest of the world.

The federal reserve and the banking system is a house of cards that would be nice to fix. But right now we have to work with what we have allowed to be built. The entire house of cards is teetering and may fail no matter what we do.

Whatever you do, do not listen to those who say, "let it fall."

“The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.” — P.J. O’Rourke - A Parliament of Whores

“Giving government money and power is like giving car keys and whiskey to a teenage boy” - P.J. O’Rourke

“America wasn’t founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damn well please.” — P.J. O’Rourke

“The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.” — PJ O’Rourke

“The free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall; the unfree market is just as ugly and just as stupid, except there is nothing in the mall and if you don’t go there they shoot you.” - P.J. O’Rourke

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