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| Issue Spotlight |
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| Wednesday, October 01, 2008 |
Economic Crisis: Where we go from here |
The taxpayer funded bailout has failed. It failed because the big government solution didn’t fix the problem.
We face a serious financial crisis. We must act to bring long-term stability to the financial markets. Doing “something” is not enough, we must do the right thing. And, we must do it in the right way so that Wall Street won’t count on a bailout every time that they skate too close to the edge.
In America, we believe in personal responsibility. We succeed or fail by our own merits. The people who make the bad decisions on Wall Street need to live with the consequences of their actions. If we bail out Wall Street’s risky behavior, we will get even riskier behavior next time. They will not learn their lesson. Congress should not force you as taxpayers to bail out Wall Street with your hard-earned tax dollars.
How much money were Paulson and Wall Street asking from you to bail them out of this crisis? With Congress supplying another $700 billion dollars, the financial bailout tab is 1.8 trillion dollars (and rising). What do 1.8 trillion taxpayer dollars look like? Imagine a line of millionaires standing shoulder to shoulder, stretching across Iowa on I-80. Each millionaire takes up a yard of highway and represents one million dollars of the 1.8 trillion dollar bailout. As you drive on I-80 starting in our capital city of Des Moines, you would see nothing but a blur of millionaires going by. By the time you reached Washington, D.C., 1018 miles later, you wouldn’t have passed enough millionaires to account for the entire 1.8 trillion dollars.
I voted “no” on the bailout bill which would have spent your taxpayer dollars to save Wall Street from the consequences of their bad decisions. This bailout would have set a precedent for future bailouts, and if it had passed you could bet that the next one would be even bigger.
With the bailout failing to pass, doing nothing is not an option. If the disease on Wall Street is not isolated, it could spread to solid banks who have made sound decisions. We need to create a firewall to protect our banks from Wall Street’s bad decisions. Not all banks are blameless, and the ones who speculated irresponsibly should fail. Most of our banks used sound judgment and will weather the storm. If we build a firewall to protect the good banks, America will be able to weather this recessionary storm.
The good news is that we have several options that don’t rely on taxpayers to bailout Wall Street. The FDIC can work with banks to ease capital requirements to help them weather the storm. The SEC can modify fair value accounting so that assets aren’t worthless during times like these, but can be measured on the basis of their true economic value. There is also a proposal to let private investors fund the bailout through Guaranteed Recovery Bonds, or to set up insurance programs to ensure Wall Street bankrolls its own recovery. Another idea would waive capital gains and other taxes on certain investments to attract more capital where it is needed.
America is going through a tough time right now and it will get harder before it gets better. But, we know that the strength of America’s economy is in our free market system. We can act to address this crisis in a way that does not sacrifice our freedom as Americans. We can weather this storm if we stay true to our principles and work for a free market solution to address the financial crisis.
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Thursday, August 26, 2010
King: Vilsack makes false claims to push amnesty
Congressman King, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration, challenges Agriculture Secretary’s Remarks on Amnesty
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Monday, August 23, 2010
King Urges Iowa Medical Board to Halt
Congressman King: “The dispensation of RU-486 via telemedicine violates Iowa law and FDA protocols.”
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