There is no doubt that our nation’s economics are in a huge mess.  In an effort to prevent another Great Depression, our government wants to use up to $700Billion (or more) of taxpayer money to buy up “bad” mortagages and debt.

An article describing the fiasco in today’s Dallas Morning News summed it up this way:

The action amounts to a massive bailout of banks and other investors that lowered their standards to make loans to borrowers who wouldn’t ordinarily qualify for a home loan.

Congress has the administration’s brief, 3-page proposal and is apparently gearing up to add many strings to this bail-out.  Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker, agreed that the federal government must do this bail-out but not without helping the families directly.

We cannot deal with this unless this bail-out helps families stay in their homes,”

she said.  Where do we draw the line?  Yes, the big firms made bad decisions when they agreed to these home loans to people who were high-risk for not paying them back.  But who signed the paper?  Who agreed to make monthly payments?

Once again, personal responsibility gets thrown out the window without even a mention by the media.  I know there are extenuating circumstances out there.  I know people have lost their jobs.  Some of them are sick and can no longer work.  But the bottom line is on the bottom line — they signed a legal contract obligating them.  I do not think it would be fair to completely wipe out their debt while millions of us are, in some cases painfully, making our own monthly mortgage payments.

If the Congress attaches some kind of provision to this financial package that will prohibit anyone from losing their home for nonpayment of their mortgage….what’s the incentive for the rest of us to pay our mortgages (beyond the obvious that we are honest and will obey the law).  There may be some kick-back from Bubba who decides that if they don’t have to pay, he doesn’t have to pay, either.  And then where would we be?

I am NOT advocating kicking people out of their homes.  I just hope our Congress will be very careful here about making sure that those who signed on the dotted line actually have some form of responsibility for their actions.

I have a bone to pick with both Senator McCain and Senator Obama.  Stop pointing the finger at each other!  I don’t want to hear about what you think your opponent thinks!  Stop using sound bites and throwing petty accusations at each other that are at best exaggerations and at worst just plain lies.  Let’s have some common decency.  I hope the debates will show us that we actually have two men to choose from and not a couple of two-year-olds fighting over words.  Both candidates are accusing the other of helping to contribute to this financial mess.  What both candidates should say is that YES, we are both guilty as charged.  McCain has always been in favor of deregulation (as were many Democrats, including Bill Clinton who signed the bill into law in 2000), but now he says that they went too far and that regulation and oversight are needed.  Obama has always been in favor of Big Government regulating everything, and now he is using this fiasco to scare people about McCain by spreading outright lies:

John McCain said he wants to do for health care what Washington did for bankers.”

John McCain doesn’t want to deregulate health care, Obama!  He wants to give everyday people more choice in which health plans they choose.  Cut it out, boys!  Now, let’s roll up our sleeves and fix this mess together, because the financial market doesn’t care about party politics.