My Take on the Economic Bailout Package and Its Failure

Despite having gotten most of my personal issues off my chest yesterday, I don’t feel too challenged to write with interest about the big news of the day: the rejection of the economic bailout plan by the House of Representatives.

I hardly know if today’s vote against the plan is the bailout’s ultimate demise. Surely, it will again rear its ugly head and, hopefully, it will be just as thoroughly slammed back down. My foresight lacks in such matters and I have been relegated to the classroom and library for most of the day. And in both locations, I have managed to mostly advert my attention from any matters not involving school work. Because of this, I currently fail to be privy to the predictions of the media analysts and experts.

However, I surely hope that the bailout is gone for good.

I was under the impression that the duty of our elected officials was to be the medium through which the voices of their constituents were heard within government. I find myself grasping for the right term to describe this setup. I think it’s called, “democracy”.

Having spent 24 years living under the impression that this democracy concept was being implemented here in the United States, imagine my surprise when I discovered that a large spectrum of officials, Democrat and Republican, in the Legislative and Executive both, were pushing for the successful ratification of this bailout package despite overwhelming calls for the contrary from most of America. Some members of government even acknowledged the disapproval of the American people in regard to the bailout, while still finding ways to see it pass.
That doesn’t seem right.

I, like many other Americans, am not in favor of this bailout. I call myself a Republican and would assume that most Republicans, by nature, would be opposed to this plan as well. However, I have recently found my association with the GOP fading. I am probably more of a Libertarian at heart. But I am at the very least currently a disenfranchised citizen.

I do think, however, that most officials in Washington fail to fundamentally understand why Main Street, USA opposes this plan. Personally, I oppose government’s hand directly manipulating entities that may very well work soundly in a more liberated system. But my fear of developing socialism isn’t the fear of the common citizen. I think that most Americans oppose this bailout plan for one simple reason:

NO ONE HAS ADEQUATELY EXPLAINED THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT IMPLEMENTING THE BAILOUT

Sure, I have heard chicken little tales of complete economic collapse, but political fear-mongering has been so commonplace in recent years that I have found myself feeling akin to witnessing the boy who cried wolf too often.

I urge government officials to inform me - inform America, and please do so with some sense of bipartisan intelligence - the real consequences of failing to pass this bill.

It’s almost like there is no one left to trust. I can’t imagine the one person whom could address this issue and explain what our economy faces that I would truly believe. I don’t know if I wouldn’t be better off asking a Magic Eight Ball.

And, therein lies the problem.

If our elected officials and the economic experts that parade on their behalf can not convince me and my peers of everyday America of pending financial doom, then we will surely be satisfied to allow the system to independently work out its kinks, allowing the cards fall where they may. Most in government grew up too lavishly to understand this term, but perhaps the economic system in America and the big institutions that dominate it (and are now failing) need a little “tough love” for the greater good of all. Sure, times may be tough temporarily, but those of us living in reality realize that tough times are often necessary to stymie the development of what some of us fear most: moral hazard.

I love the free-market. But I will be the first to say that deregulation may have helped stimulate the mess in which we currently find ourselves. But I will add that in a truly liberated system, deregulation would have never been required in the first place.

I wonder: What would Milton Friedman advise in these troubled financial times?