Bail Out? Maybe that's exactly what we should do...

The talk everywhere you turn for the past several months has been about government bail-outs and the need for economic stimulus. I have heard many of the arguments for, and to a lesser degree, the arguments against these actions. I know many are confused on what needs to be done, torn between giving ailing businesses and industry sectors help and leaving the market place to itself to correct the problems over time. For most of our politicians I think the question boils down to how much should the government be involved and what kind of return will they get when elections roll around again. The question I would like to ask is 'what caused these problems and when did it become the governments job to interfere in the marketplace?'.

If you dig past the surface of 'smoke and mirrors' that the politicians in congress are throwing up you find that most of the problems we have faced go back decades into the past. A great deal of government interference (as opposed to involvement as some suggest) began with the policies of FDR and his Big Government approach to solving economic issues. Many scholars now point to his administration's policies as a key factor in extending the economic depression by up to seven years. This is where the modern big government liberalism started. President Johnson put us into the welfare crisis that we have today by allowing people to live off the success of others instead of working to achieve something for themselves. Nixon gave us the out-of-control, over regulating EPA to assuage the environmentalist radicals that demanded federal intervention in the pollution problems we faced. I could go on about many more federal agencies (such as the NHTSA, OSHA, etc.) and regulations that interfere with our daily lives and override the idea our founding fathers had of each state's right to regulate themselves.

If you look into the current crisis in mortgage lending the problem is not corporate C.E.O.'s with large salaries and 'golden parachutes'. Have some of these people been overpaid and given outrageous severance deals over the years? Yes. Is it the business of anyone other than the board of directors and shareholders to change this? No. The real problem that hit the mortgage industry so hard was a meddling government that required loans to be made to people that were bad credit risks and could not afford the homes they were purchasing.

The same is true of the ailing American auto industry. The people that know how to make and sell automobiles work for Ford, GM and Chrysler.... they do not hold seats in the Senate, House or any other post in the government. The C.A.F.E. standards that have been applied to the automakers along with the outrageous burden of the overpaid employees of 'Big Labor' have combined to cripple our domestic manufacturers ability to compete. If rising fuel prices cause the public to demand vehicles with better mileage, then competition will drive the manufacturers to meet that need without government interference. The market dictates who succeeds and who fails based upon a sellers ability to meet the buyers wants and desires.

This is where the problem for most politicians and radical liberals originates. They see themselves as better educated and wiser than the public. They spend all of their time talking about freedom of choice (aren't these the 'pro-choice' people?) yet they want to eliminate our freedom of choice in so many areas. They want you to drive the car that they approve of (in spite of their continuance to drive large SUV's and fuel inefficient sedans) instead of the car you would like to buy. They want our children to attend public schools and have a government mandated curriculum, and appropriate indoctrination, instead of allowing us to make a choice of where our dollars and our children attend school. These individuals who have proven that they cannot manage anything (how's the future of Social Security looking, or the federal budget deficit) want to take control of our financial institutions, the auto industry, health care, the petroleum producers, regulate the thermostats in our homes and now even dictate whether television broadcasts are analog or digital (and use our money to provide converters for those that cannot afford to miss Oprah or The View).

I for one think that it is time for a massive, all inclusive bail-out. The federal government needs to bail-out of the free market, the affairs of the free states, and our supposedly free lives. Our nations founders did not risk their lives, the lives of their families, their fortunes and all that they had to be ruled by a government that sought to control their money, education, purchasing decisions and tax them into oblivion. God help us to start the return to reason in government and restore our freedoms to their intended state.