Bailout Reprise

Bailout Reprise by Bill Roberts

This was inspired by my conversations with Jan Wood on her blog. You can read the run up to this here.

Duncan Hunter is MY Congressman. I live in his district. I am very disappointed in him. He is retiring this year. His son, also named Duncan Hunter is running for his seat. Early in the primary campaign Bill Cherry had a quiz on his blog that "matched" the respondent with the candidate that most closely reflected their values. Duncan Hunter was my closest match.

As a matter-of-fact 4 of the 5 Congress people in San Diego County voted against the bill. The only vote in favor was by the most liberal Democrat (Susan Davis) here. It is very demoralizing for me that I seem to be on the opposite side of this issue, but I believe that I am right.

I personally don't give a hoot what happens to the banks, but I do care what happens to us (all of us) and I think that the foreclosure problem needs to be dealt with summarily. If we applied some of the ideas that the conservatives advocated the banks would continue foreclosing on non-performing loans and continuing to fail as a consequence. Workouts would not be an option. Foreclosures are disastrous to our economy.

When I say I don't care about the banks I want to clarify that. I do care about the S&Ls. If the bill had passed the first time around WaMu and Wachovia might have survived. We need more thrifts not less. We need to decentralize mortgage financing. We don't need fewer financial center mega-banks controlling every aspect of our daily lives.

I just hope that the "protections" for homeowners written into the bill will cause Treasury to rewrite these non-performing loans so that more people can keep their homes. It isn't a question of "do they deserve to be helped." A foreclosed house hurts all of us.

Even though I believe in some libertarian ideas, I don't like Libertarians because they put consistency above common sense. Even a Christian Scientist needs to go to a doctor if they've had a traumatic injury. We need to be practical and pragmatic. Save the patient first, and then work on the philosophical things.

Most of the Republicans that voted for the rescue plan put "Country First." Even Newt Gingrich, who was initially against the bill, spoke in its favor because we had to do something quickly and this is what was available. Maybe if we had had the luxury of time we could have come up with something more agreeable.

I hope all is well with you. We will come through this.

Bill Roberts