Congress shouldn’t reward gamblers

If you received a call from a stranger who demanded that you pay his bar bill and bookie or he would ruin your family’s finances, you wouldn’t reach for your wallet.

But Congress is ready to reach for our wallets at the behest of President Bush and Wall Street lobbyists who threaten us with a 1932-style depression if they do not get $700 billion for the debts of Wall Street gamblers and financial inebriates!

If private investors won’t buy Wall Street’s disputed assets, why should Congress force us to pay? The U.S. Treasury wants $700 billion to buy bad loans at above market prices, and then auction them off for maybe cents on the dollar to the same Wall Street gangs causing this mess!

Bush wants to give former Goldman Sachs CEO and current Treasury Secretary Paulson powers equal to a one-man economic dictatorship: “Decisions by the secretary ... may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

This grand larceny, done while the FBI investigates the very companies Congress wants to bail out, will increase Wall Street’s financial philandering, not end it. A Depression is more likely with Congress so generously rewarding bad behavior, rather than letting those who take risks, pay for the risks.

The $300 billion already given away in 2008 stimulus packages, bailouts and “loans” for investment banks, Detroit auto makers, mortgage giants and insurance companies was supposed to fix the economy. Giving candy to one child doesn’t work. 

Adding $1 trillion to $2 trillion to the national debt over six months when the federal budget and trade balance deficits are hundreds of billions in the red will increase inflation and decrease the purchasing power of our paychecks and savings.

Congress should stand up to extortionists, not pay them. 

Del. Bob Marshall

Prince William County