The great congressional give away

Unless you live under a rock, you no doubt know that congress has passed legislation to bail out the financial institutions.

At this point, I’m not sure if we all just witnessed a train wreck, or a new New Deal. Knowing the U.S. government, it will probably just end up being a New Train Wreck.

My wildly popular questioning attitude leads me to one of the more fundamental questions about this situation: Is government intervention really required?

If there is any poetry to be had within this situation it is the long held believe by most conservatives that we should all let the free market take its course. After all, it will correct itself. Those same conservatives are now voting for government intervention. Now, that doesn’t mean they were wrong. On the contrary the current state of things proves that the market is self correcting; unsustainable business practices won’t, as the adjective implies, last. The irony, then, is that the free market conservatives were right all along, yet they chose to go against the free market values they have been promoting for years.

So, in typical government fashion, the tax payers will give a lot more money to the companies that couldn’t manage their own funds. Also typical, there won’t be any oversight, or any provisions to address the root cause of the situation we’re in. So, apparently, it doesn’t matter how we got here. What matters is that we slap a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage and hope for the best.

While my sarcasm could easily be interpreted as me being against any government intervention, but that wouldn’t necessarily be true. Government intervention has the potential to stave off disaster for millions of people. What’s lacking with the legislation is the following:

• Proper oversight
• Addressing the root cause of the problem
• Thorough transparency for the new investors – taxpayers
• Ensuring that the people who brought on this mess don’t profit from it

Since the approved bill doesn’t address any of these, I can’t be for it.

If you’re interested in seeing how your elected representatives voted, please click on the links below:

Senate – Roll Call No. 212 – $700 Billion Economic Recovery Rescue Bill

House – H. R. 1424 – Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

For a thorough analysis of the situation, I recommend watching this video from the Bill Moyers Journal