No Bailout for Wall Street

Written by Chuck Floyd on 2008-09-24T12:11:48+00:00

Does anyone remember the RTC?  This government bailout was supposed to be once in a life time rescue of the real estate market.  However, the multi-millionaires on Wall Street now want the American taxpayer to rescue them--again.  The current crisis has been caused by Congress and the financial institutions who have reaped millions of dollars in fees for BAD LOANS.

The massive federal "scheme" ($700 billion and apparently growing) to have taxpayers buy up bad mortgages that is currently being cobbled together by the Bush administration and a bipartisan coalition on Capitol Hill is a terrible idea. It constitutes a large transfer of wealth from the American taxpayer in an effort to revive failed private-sector businesses that should be permitted to fail - something that is essential if a free-market capitalist system is to survive and prosper in the future.

The American economy will not collapse.  Congress needs to fix the legislation that caused this mess and should take small deliberate financial steps to ensure that banks do not fail.  They should not protect or reward the greedy Wall Street executives who have caused their companies to go bankrupt.  If they are interested in the success of their companies, they should use their millions of dollars to save their companies, not the taxpayers' money.

This bailout package does not represent fiscal conservatism. Millions of American taxpayers should not be held responsible for the current financial crisis.  Let the market react so that private investors buy up the Wall Street companies, not the American taxpayer.   

If legislation is needed to ward off a financial crisis, then it should not be rammed through in a fashion where members of Congress can not possibly have the time to study it.  Indeed, Fannie and Freddie helped fuel the mortgage crisis in the first place by becoming primary customers for subprime mortgage loan pools--created during the Clinton administration.  We need to ask Raines and Johnson to repay the millions they were paid and file a law suit against them.


This bailout proposal is fraught with political peril for all politicians who support it.  The American taxpayer should not accept this request by the administration.