Posted by
Bryn T. Jones on Saturday, October 11, 2008 10:05:18 PM
It amazes me that Barak Obama is running ahead in the poles as a result of the economic turmoil. Contrary to his lie that it happened because of de-regulation, it happened from the opposite--Government intervention in the free market! John McCain would do well to say this over and over.
One problem, he's for more government intervention. This makes him look and sound just like Barak Obama, only older and supposedly wiser. Rather than come out blazing in his debate, angry at Barak and the liberals who forced us into this mess, he served up more of the same--a 300 billion bailout of troubled mortgages.
The problems we face are Socialist in nature. A social remedy allowed unqualified borrowers to get into homes. The surge in the market drove the price of homes up and allowed banks to write lines of credit like they were going out of style. In fact, they were going out of style. As soon as the mortgages started to default, the spreading cataclysm left banks with devalued assets because of the shrinking demand and a growing supply.
The government had choices that would have fit in a free market solution. They could have cut the capital gains tax, the corporate tax, and eliminated the mark to market rule. This suspension would only need to be temporary in order to revitalize business.
Rather, Bush, a self-proclaimed free market "guy" has ushered in the largest act of Socialism we've ever witnessed. I'd expect this from a liberal along the lines of, say, Barak Obama, but not George W. Bush.
Big government got us into this mess, bigger government won't fix it.
If John McCain hopes to regain his Maverick image, he should abandon these notions of Socialist bailout and embrace the obvious fact that we're all going to have to pay the price in the market one way or another. But in the end, the market will purge the bad credit and build on better foundations. So long as government stays out of the mix.