Hands up! This is a crisis! Fear me or else I will make more vague and undefined threats. Obey me and everything will be fine until the next crisis.
Posted on 09/24/2008 11:01:41 PM PDT by y2gordo
Okay, I don't know what the solution to this crisis is, but we all know that this bailout is NOT it.
I've heard several people on these boards talk about this not being the time to stand up for our conservative beliefs, and I think that is b.s. This is the time when our conservatism is needed the most.
We are about to fundamentally shape the nature of this country in a way that would make our founding fathers sick. This nation was founded on conservatism, though it was called "classic liberalism" at the time. Rolling over and accepting this "bailout" is not the solution our founding fathers would have wanted us to adopt.
So what is the conservative solution to this problem? We have thousands of very smart, very knowledgeable people on this board, and thousands more who can offer an opinion. We can come up with something better than this.
I saw Mike Pence on FoxNews today, and he looked like a deer in headlights. That scared me. I don't think they know what to do either.
So I open up the floor to one and all. Forget for a moment what you think should be done. Forget how practical it might actually be. We won't know that until we know what we come up with.
What is the truly conservative solution to this crisis?
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IBFTZ
This nation was founded on conservatism but this economy is infected by the freddie/fannie virus.
The conservative solution: Let the crash come, then rebuild the economy on a cash basis.
But it won’t happen. There’s no percentage in a cash economy for the moneylenders.
Of course, the crash will come anyway, sooner or later. The gods of the Copybook Headings will not be denied. I say let’s get the pain over with and move on.
“I say let’s get the pain over with and move on.”
moveon.org will just move on all over us
It’s buried in Simi Valley, California
The US of A as a whole is not prepared for a truly conservative solution to this problem. The media outlets are only interested in yakking, and jacking this up into a frenzy.
This is way past a conservative solution, my friend.
It’s a joke.
fine... ok I will solve it
Opt out of social security taxes. Allow penalty free roll overs from 401k or 403b to roth if invested in the bail out fund.
Privatize back over the security lives (8 years or so)
easy solution.
OK... now solve social security
It is way uglier.
How come there was hardly a collective Freeper blink on that one?
2. Capital gains tax holiday;
3. Allow homeowners who are underwater on their loans to refi at current FMV of the home at prime fixed rate and let the banks take the hit on those loans now rather than foreclose and take a much bigger hit. This is what commercial borrowers can do but not home owners.
4. Allow banks with big losses to sell their losses to companies with gains. This will give them capital to cover a big chunk of their losses. Dems are looking at carbon trading, this is no different. It will reduce taxes to the treasury, but that is better than paying out from the treasury.
5. Prosecute the executives of the banks that hid their problems, defrauded investors and caused losses to taxpayers.
6. Disband Fannie and Freddie. Create many similar companies on a smaller scale and with stricter rules about capital requirements.
7. Drill oil like hell and use profits from oil revenue to help pay for some of this cost to the budget.
That's a start.
Now, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, middle-class taxpayers are going to be forced to bail out the Democrats’ two most important constituent groups: rich Wall Street bankers and welfare recipients.” ~ Coulter
Bingo. The "bailout" just delays the inevitable and makes the overall situation worse by laying a huge debt on the taxpayers. The dumb ass politicians are trying to pay their bills by opening a bunch of credit card accounts. Surprise! The credit card bill will be coming due shortly. Where will they get the money to pay it? Crash!
The bad news is that those of us who have been responsible with our money with be the very ones burdened with bailing out the irresponsible. It's a real ant and grasshopper moment.
The conservative solution is to find all of the people who committed fraud and throw them in jail. What we ought to do is take $100 billion and build some new federal prisons and lock away these mortgage brokers who deliberately wrote bad loans and those borrowers who deliberately overstated their incomes in order to obtain loans that they knew they could never repay.
After that, we will suffer a much deserved national recession and we will have learned a valuable lesson about living within our collective means, and holding our elected representatives’ feet to the fire.
I like those ideas as a start. However, I would add an across the board reduction in payroll taxes to add more real money to the economy to help pay down personal debt and to give businesses more income while the credit market works itself out.
Freedom.
Hands up! This is a crisis! Fear me or else I will make more vague and undefined threats. Obey me and everything will be fine until the next crisis.
Hands up! This is a crisis! Fear me or else I will make more vague and undefined threats. Obey me and everything will be fine until the next crisis.
Do you know anyone who is going to have a capital gain on their investments this year?
Gordo, I know that you’re trying to get a serious answer to a very serious issue. Consider that some of the responses you’re getting are a symptom of how overwhelming this situation is for even very smart people.
As for me, it’s my belief that one of the conservative planks in the overall solution should be an immediate downsizing and a trimming of the fat in the federal bureaucracy.
If the people are going to be made to shoulder this terrible burden, then Washington needs to bring something of substance to the table. First step - cut the cost of government.
Second step - cut entitlements of all types. First to go, should be foreign aid. Then federal subsidies of all kinds. Pork and earmarks have become a big issue lately, so let’s get to cutting. Cut out corporate and private welfare of every kind.
Third step - make fundamental changes to our tax system. Scrap the IRS and the tax code and replace the personal income tax with either a consumption tax, or a flat tax. Get rid of the death tax and cut capital gains taxes. Eliminate punitive taxes of every kind, to stimulate the economy and encourage foreign investment. Make America an irresistible place to do business.
Fourth step - remove all governmental stops and barriers to the development of our own natural energy resources and nuclear power. Allow us to become energy independent again.
As to other more esoteric solutions, you may want to read the thread about Dave Ramsey’s solution. It’s very good, and makes better sense than most things I’ve read lately.
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