For the past few weeks you have heard a lot about bailing out Wall Street before the financial crisis hit Main Street; however I think the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 missed the mark on both fronts – that’s why I voted against it twice.
I was not opposed to it for political or partisan reasons. I was not opposed to it for emotional reasons. I was against it because it doesn’t fundamentally address the real problem.
This bill was trying to treat the symptom not the disease.
The reason our economy is in distress is because fundamentally we are becoming less competitive in international markets. We have a crisis in our financial markets. We have a crisis of confidence in our credit markets and this bill only indirectly addresses those issues. We need to solve that problem, but we need to do it with targeted legislation instead of a fear-driven rush to bail out financiers.
The Senate bill was the same bill we voted down on Monday, but with several sweeteners added to it. Those projects bought enough votes for the legislation to pass. But my vote wasn’t for sale. I stood by one of my most steadfast conservative principles – don’t spend money you don’t have.
My biggest problem with this legislation - first and foremost from a taxpayers’ standpoint – is that it’s not paid for. This bill will raise the national debt $1.5 trillion. If you throw in the tax extender package originally added in the Senate you end up with a price tag of approximately $2 trillion. But there is absolutely nothing in the bill about how to pay for that $2 trillion. That puts taxpayers’ hard earned money at risk!
Fundamentally, we need to address the American economy. This bill simply does not do that. You want the value of the dollar to go up – how about cutting spending and lowering the deficit? How about coming up with a tax program that encourages entrepreneurship in America? Regrettably, those concepts played no role in bailout plan that passed the House of Representatives on Friday.
Unfortunately, I believe that Americans will be paying for this vote for generations to come.
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