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Conservative arguments against the bailout

Posted 25 Sep 2008 in bailouts, conservatism, economy, Newt Gingrich

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) argues for caution:

There are those in the public debate who say we must act now…The last time I heard that, I was on a used car lot. The truth is every time somebody tells you that you have to do the deal right now, it usually means they are going to get the better part of the deal. The American people deserve a seat at the table in this debate as well.

Thomas Sowell argues for speed:

The longer it takes Congress to pass the bailout bill, the more goodies are going to find their way into the legislation. Speed is important, not just to protect the financial markets but to protect the taxpayers from having more of their hard-earned money squandered by politicians.

Bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos. As recently as July of this year, Dodd declared Fannie Mae and Freddie “fundamentally strong” and said there is no need for “panicking” about them. But now that the chickens have come home to roost, Dodd wants to be sure to get some goodies from the rescue legislation to pass out to people likely to vote for him.

Fred Thompson:

You’d think we’d have learned by now: when the backstop of the federal treasury makes it easier for politicians, lenders, borrowers, welfare recipients, government contractors, or anyone else, to serve their own self interest at the expense of the taxpayer, many will do just that.

That is why we continue to see self-dealing, moral lapses, outright fraud and lack of management and oversight in a wide array of programs and government-sponsored entities, from housing to Medicare, education and the Small Business Administration, all costing taxpayers billions, even trillions of dollars.

George Will:

Members of Congress are being exhorted to stampede, like lemmings in reverse, away from a postulated cliff. But some of the economic geographers who say they know that the cliff is there, and that the economy will plunge over it if Congress stops to think before empowering the secretary of the Treasury to control the flow of capital through the veins of American capitalism, are some of those experts who said in March that prophylactic federal intervention in the matter of Bear Stearns was necessary to contain the crisis.

Everything that has been done for the last six months has been done to cope with what previous actions were supposed to prevent. A perhaps pertinent axiom: There is no education in the second kick of a mule.

Newt Gingrich:

I think the idea of giving the Secretary of the Treasury $700 billion to bail out Wall Street is just so profoundly wrong. I can’t quite imagine that they’re moving forward with it. I mean, it’s wrong in every way. It’s wrong to take money and bail out Wall Street. It’s wrong to give that kind of power to the secretary of the treasury. Watching this Congress write it makes me worry about what all the hidden details will be.

William Kristol:

[The bailout proposal] would enable the Treasury, without congressionally approved guidelines as to pricing or procedure, to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of financial assets, and hire private firms to manage and sell them, presumably at their discretion. There are no provisions for — or even promises of — disclosure, accountability or transparency. Surely Congress can at least ask some hard questions about such an open-ended commitment.

Surely we can trust our Congress to spend $700 billion dollars without being wasteful, right? Surely nobody will take this crisis as some kind of blank checkbook with which to further rob taxpayers!

Posted by FullMetalPatriot
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT

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