NationRight

Its no secret that I am against the proposed government bailout of the financial industry.  I was against against the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  I was against the takeover of AIG.  I applauded when the FEDS “allowed” Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt.

However, I figured that, by holding this position, I was in the vast minority of Americans.  I assumed that most Americans would be fooled into thinking that this bailout was for the best.  I figured that our quick-fix mentally would supersede any rational thought and our fear of the dreaded R-word (Recession) would get the best of us.  Honestly, I doubted if there were very many true fiscal conservatives left in America.

As this discussion has taken place over the past couple of days, I have been pleasantly surprised at the number of people who are against this unprecedented bailout.  Michelle Malkin (again) and others have begun to point out some of the flaws of this problem, just like I did last week.

More importantly, it appears that Congress is starting to get the idea.  Several Democrats and a few, principled Republicans are standing up and saying “No Deal” to the plan.

The Democrats, as usual, are disagreeing because they want to see several hundred billion more dollars tacked on to create more government bureaucracy to “oversee” the financial industry and several billion more in hand-outs to other folks and the usual “if a little Socialism is good, then a lot must be better” Democratic mindset.

So, why are there less Republicans fighting this?  Well, the apologist Republicans at RedState.com can explain that to you.  However, some principled Republicans get it, led by Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.  Sen. Shelby said,

It sounds like France to me,  It’s a European model that we shouldn’t go down.

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) added that if the bailout is adopted

the free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America.

By the way, the French are proud of us.  Bernard Carayon, a French legislator had this to say about the proposed bailout:

I salute the Americans.  What they are doing is a sign of their pragmatism and incisiveness.  The state exists for the common good, and so it’s natural that they intervene.

Wow, how scary does that sound?  Of course, even the Socialist French aren’t bailing their financial system out, opting instead to seek private investment in their own troubled banks.  If you didn’t notice, Warren Buffet did the same thing in America today, investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs.

Although I still believe that fear will win and the bailout will pass, there is a chance that it will not pass.  So, what would that mean for us?

• The financial markets would take a serious beating and a lot of people would lose their jobs.
• Credit, both personal and corporate, would become more difficult and more expensive to attain.
• A deep recession would most likely follow.

That sounds really bad.  However, free market forces would reshape the financial markets (it’s already happening, if you haven’t noticed), Americans would learn to better live within their means without such easy access to credit, and the recession would end rather quickly.  And, it will be a lot less painful than the mainstream media will make it out to be.

Nevertheless, it would be painful, but we would be a stronger nation with a stronger economy made up of stronger people in the end.  By bailing out these firms, we are just setting ourselves up for a slower recovery from this “near-recession” that will affect us all much more deeply in the long-run than the no-bailout scenario presented above.  It will be short-term gain for long-term pain.