A Call to Arms

My fellow countrymen, please visit this website: http://www.house.gov/Welcome.shtml. Here, you can look up your U.S. Congressman or Congresswoman, if you don't already know who they are.

Next, visit your Congressman's website. It turns out mine is John Culberson (R).

Who knew?

Here's his website, including his summary of why he voted against today's bailout bill. In his summary, he said he couldn't vote for a bill that put so much taxpayer money on the line. He counterproposed the following:

"The best solution to this crisis is to suspend mark-to-market accounting rules, establish a mandatory insurance/guarantee program to cover the banks’ losses at no expense to taxpayers, cut the capital gains rate to zero, cut taxes for offshore dollars repatriated back into the U.S., and slash corporate tax rates to encourage investment and lending. Changing the mark to market accounting rule alone will solve a huge part of the problem by allowing banks to keep non-performing assets on their books until they recover their value."

I've said many times that I am not an economist, so I fully admit that much of the nuance of his solution goes right over my head. That being said, I wrote Congressman Culberson the following email message which I just got done sending:

Congressman Culberson,

I read your website summarizing why you voted against the September 28th, 2008 bailout bill. I don't, however, understand how your counterproposal would help alleviate the credit crunch. I see a lot of tax cut proposals, but those strike me as benefiting only the wealthy. I see an insurance program paid for by the banks, but how does that alleviate the immediate crisis? Please explain how your proposals will loosen the credit crunch and free up banks to begin lending money again. And explain how your plan benefits the majority of Americans and not just a wealthy few.

Congressman, let me be clear. I want this situation resolved. I want you to work closely with your peer Democrats. I could care less about Democratic or Republican partisan politics and their ever shifting platforms. The parties can burn for all I care. But my country cannot.

Get the job done. Protect average Americans. Punish CEO and executives that allowed this to happen. Legislate oversight and regulation that will prevent this in the future. Nothing, I mean, nothing is more important than a strong American economy. The future of all other issues rests firmly upon it.

Get the job done.

Your citizen,


James Thomson
http://furiouscognition.blogspot.com/

Friends, I urgently encourage you all to find out how your Congressman voted the bailout bill, read their position, and then question them. I don't care if they voted for it or against it. Send them a letter, tell them what YOU think. The truth of the matter is that our politicians are likely operating on less background and information than we are. Additionally, we need to make our representatives defend their positions. It's not enough that Culberson wants to cut capital gains taxes. He must explain to me, to us, how that's going to HELP the situation and not just enrich some of his most important donors.

This bailout bill may not be the solution to our current economic crisis. We consulted too few true experts on the matter. There are economists out there that disagree with Paulsen and think we ought not give the money to Wall Street, but that instead we should be lending it to them. So who's right?

Who the hell knows?

That's why we need dialogue. We needs information. We need explanations. We need guidance. A good first step is to find out who your U.S. Rep is, find out out how and why they voted the way they did, and then get some answers from THEM. In the process of them telling us the whys and the hows, they might just start begin listening to us.

If that's not democray, I don't know what is.