My Email to Inslee on the Bailout

NO BAILOUT!

Mr. Inslee,


I know that you waited until you knew the bailout bill would not pass before you cast your nay vote. I am against a bailout in any form. This country needs to wake up and stop living on easy credit.

We've been through recessions before and we'll get through this one. By adding $700B to our national debt and attempting to socialize and subsidize risk we will have a bigger one down the road. I don't want my children or grandchildren to endure that.

In the end, the best thing you can do is encourage less spending from the federal government. We can't tax the rich to pay for ponies for everyone, and we can't grow our way out of this. The holders of the purse strings need to lead by example and start being responsible with taxpayers money. Any bailout would be exactly the opposite of that. Thanks for your time.

Buh-bye for Now (until Thursday)

The bailout bill has failed in the house. My very own Representative, Jay Inslee, voted against it. He would have been perfectly happy, I'm sure, with this giant goose-step toward socialism, but my understanding is that it would not have contained enough “taxpayer safeguards” for his taste. I'm trying to get his web site up but the traffic, not surprisingly, is very heavy.

The reason for the vote could be anything (who can pin down the motive of 228 representatives), but the majority of the voters that care, to my shock, were against it. Good for them. I'm nervous about a financial breakdown or a recession that will come without the bailout, but with one in place we will surely be looking at a bigger one down the road.

You can blame the credit markets for this but the Federal Reserve is really where the blame lies. When they lower interest rates and print lots of new money and make loans so easy to get, what do you expect? More to follow...

Let's Dive into This.

Since I have a little more time at the moment, I'd like to try to explain what this blog is going to be about. One thing that I follow closely is politics. I consider myself a libertarian-leaning independent. You'll notice that I used a small "l' in "libertarian." I used to actually be a member of the Libertarian Party, and I still primarily vote for the Libertarian candidate. But I'm no longer a member of the party because for a couple of reasons: 1) There are certain parts of the plank that I have a problem with, and 2) The party seems unwilling to bend on some of the smaller stuff such that they can actually win elections.

Since the big news lately is the financial mess we're in, I will try to address that. I'm absolutely against any bailout of the banks that are hurting. Don't get me wrong, a recession and a long-term decline of the stock market will hurt me too. It will hurt everyone. But adding another half billion to a trillion dollars to the national debt will hurt much worse.

Consider the report from David Walker, who was Comptroller General of the GAO when he released this report(pdf). This is a gloomy look at what our country faces if the federal spending does not get under control. Page 15 is a real eye-opener:

Current Fiscal Policy Is Unsustainable

•The "Status Quo"Is Not an Option
•We face large and growing structural deficits largely due to known demographic trends and rising health care costs.

•GAO’s simulations show that balancing the budget in 2040 could require actions as large as
•Cutting total federal spending by 60 percent or
Raising federal taxes to two times today's level

•Faster Economic Growth Can Help, but It Cannot Solve the Problem
•Closing the current long-term fiscal gap based on reasonable assumptions would require real average annual economic growth in the double-digit range every year for the next 75 years.
•During the 1990s, the economy grew at an average 3.2 percent per year.
•As a result, we cannot simply grow our way out of this problem. Tough choices will be required.

It's some scary stuff, and if our "leaders" are not addressing this issue then they are merely a waste of skin. I have contacted my representative and senators about not supporting a bailout. I have a feeling it will fall on deaf ears, and I'll excerpt their responses (if any) here.

The Sage Commander Hits the Blogosphere!

So this is my first post in this blog, Northwest Sage. I'll be posting here to talk about happenings in the Pacific Northwest, but I'll also throw in the odd story or issue from other places as well. Thanks for visiting!