ntu

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The bailout happened. What now?

There’s a lot of finger-pointing around Washington about who’s to blame – for both the conditions that necessitated a rescue package and for allowing one of the largest-ever government intrusions into the private sector to become law.

Today, the National Taxpayers Union and the Competitive Enterprise Institute launched BeyondBailouts.org to answer three main questions: How did this happen? What do we do now? How can I get involved? BeyondBailouts.org seeks to move past the blame game by learning from what went wrong, enacting policies to address those mistakes, and enabling taxpayers to get involved and take control of their hard-earned dollars. Among the reform recommendations:

• Privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac;
• Prosecute Corrupt Officials;
• Suspend Destructive Accounting Rules;
• Repeal the Community Investment Act; and
• Clean Up the Tax Code

As part of the site, NTU and CEI have launched a new “No More Bailouts” petition to provide taxpayers the ability to contact their representatives in Congress and the President with their thoughts on bailout-mania. Visit BeyondBailouts.org and get involved today! 

Despite our political differences, I’d like to give John McCain some credit where credit is due.  

“And now I suggest that maybe you go to some of these organizations that are the watchdogs of what we do, like the Citizens Against Government Waste or the National Taxpayers Union or these other organizations that watch us all the time,” McCain said during last Tuesday’s presidential debate.

I couldn’t agree more. As McCain requested, please do go check out the data provided by the National Taxpayers Union which show exactly how much money McCain’s policy proposals will increase yearly federal spending. Their data clearly shows that former Congressman Bob Barr’s policy proposals will decrease spending by $201 billion each year, while Senator McCain’s will expand the cost of government by $92 billion.

Keep in mind that the NTU data were released on September 25, 2008 and Senator McCain has been very busy spending even more of your hard-earned tax dollars since then. 

“In yesterday’s debate, Sen. John McCain, who likes to pose as the taxpayer’s friend, came up with yet another bailout idea,” Bob Barr noted on October 8th.  “He wants the government to use $300 billion—which it doesn’t have—to buy up bad mortgages in order to prop up housing prices.  Yet, it was the artificial inflation of housing prices that got us into this mess in the first place.” 

“Moreover, Congress already has approved a $300 billion housing bailout measure supported by Sen. McCain,” Barr continued. “On top of that, Congress agreed to another $200 billion or more to bail-out the housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Then there is the recent $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, which Sen. McCain voted for."

Of course, Barr has been adamantly opposed to each of these bailout schemes, calling them bailouts from Hell on Neil Cavuto.

Senator McCain also talks a big game about cutting earmarks, despite the fact that he just voted for another $103 billion in “bold-faced earmarks.” And earmarks are merely the tip of the spending iceberg. Of late, the national symbol for earmark spending has been the Sarah Palin-supported “Bridge to Nowhere.” The difference between McCain’s and Barr’s spending proposals would finance 736 Bridges to Nowhere – or fifteen Bridges to Nowhere per state per year.

One doesn’t have to search very far on the Internet to find McCain supporters begging Americans to vote for John McCain because at least he isn’t a socialist like Barack Obama. A quick glance at the chart above (full detail provided in .gif and .pdf format) shows that one can either be on the small-government side or the big-government side of fiscal policy. The side which John McCain picked is readily apparent.

Hopefully, voters concerned with fiscal responsibility will change their minds and support Barr after seeing these data. The only remaining claim for McCain defenders is that “John McCain may be a socialist, but at least he’s our socialist.”

Stephen Gordon serves as the eCampaign Manager for the Barr 2008 Presidential Campaign.