Libertarians for Ron Paul

“Congress has balked at the Bush administration’s proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Under this plan, the Treasury would have bought the “troubled assets” of financial institutions in an attempt to avoid economic meltdown.”

“This bailout was a terrible idea. Here’s why.”

“The current mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk.”

“Worse, beginning in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century, Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime lending. The industry was happy to oblige, given the implicit promise of federal backing, and subprime lending soared.”

Full column by Jeffrey Miron @ http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Today, September 29, is the 127th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig von Mises, the outstanding champion of Free Market Economics. Ludwig von Mises was born on September 29, 1881, in Lemberg, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Mises left Austria in 1934, after the Nazi Party seized power in neighboring Germany. He came to the United States in 1940, and taught economics in an endowed chair at New York University until his death in 1973.

He is the author of many books, including Human Action:A Treatise on Economics; Socialism; Liberalism and his analysis of the rise of National Socialism Omnipotent Government.

These books and others are available @ www.renbook.com 

More information on Mises is available @ www.mises.org the website of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

America got a special present for Mises’ Birthday - the predators had their bail-out defeated in a vote by the House of Representatives. Happy Birthday, Ludwig von Mises.

The House of Representatives has given America some breathing time. Today, the House voted to defeat the proposed bail-out, with a bipartisan group of 205 in favor, and a bipartisan group of 228 against:

Roll-Call vote is @ http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll674.xml

Libertarians for Ron Paul commends the 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats who voted against this move.toward Socialism.

We condemn the 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans who voted to rape the taxpayers on behalf of irresponsible Wall Street corporations. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat leader Steny Hoyer, Republican leader John Boehner and Republican Whip Roy Blunt all showed their contempt for American principles and the American taxpayers.

Five years after he claimed “Misson Accomplished” President Bush’s Iraq War continues to claim American and Iraqi lives, and continues to burdent the American taxpayer. The government debt has grown alongside the war, and will be a burden to our children and grandchildren.

President Bush now warns that America faces economic disaster, and he has proposed a massive transfer of taxpayer dollars to banks and other big financial institutions. At a time when many Americans are just treading water, Bush wants us to bail out the big money guys.

 The Bush Bail-Out, which has won support of the Democratic leadership, amounts to a huge threat to the economy already suffering under the burden’s of Bush’s welfare-warfare state. Since taking office, President Bush has pushed the national debt up form $5.7 trillion to almost $10 trillion. He proposes to burden us and our children with another $700 billion in debt to rescue Wall Street firms from their own bad decisions.

FALLOUT FROM IRAQ WAR

  The Iraq War is the biggest government program of the Bush administration. He has also pushed through massive hikes in military spending unrelated to the war, and he has pushed new domestic government programs which costs hundreds of billions per year.

Government borrowing to fund the deficits competes with private capital’s need for credit. To counter the depressing effects of government borrowing, the Federal Reserve System has pumped huge amounts of money into the credit markets from 2002 to 2006. This lead to the run-up in housing prices, and has left homeowners with mortgage debt, and banks with non-performing mortgages and mortgage based securities.

The financial crisis is collateral damage from Bush’s expensive pre-emptive war in Iraq. If the Bail-Out passes, a few irresponsible financial institutions will be saved, but more home-owners will lose their homes as Treasury Bill sales drive up interest rates, and more banks will be in trouble. The bail-out will amount to the biggest expansion of government intervention in financial markets in American history.

 As President Bush sent individuals without trial to Guantanamo, expanded the government’s power to spy on Americans, and started several wars, conservatives applauded what they saw as a strong stand against terrorism. Now many of these conservatives are seeing their investments dive in value, their savings threatened, and a great leap forward into socialism. Will they tell their Congressmen to oppose Bush’s socialistic Bail-out for Bankers?

We can hope that middle class outrage is the unexploded mine that Bush and Congress are about to step on.

“Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain on Sunday gingerly embraced a newly negotiated congressional deal for a $700 billion bailout of the hobbled financial industry.”

“This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with. The option of doing nothing is simply not an acceptable option,” McCain said. Obama said he was inclined to back it “because I think Main Street is now at stake.”

Ful AP Story @ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/09/28/politics/p094141D09.DTL

“In the topsy turvy world of Washington, to combat what is being called the “most momentous financial crisis since the Great Depression,” the Republicans have gone socialist and the Democrats are advocating the corporatism of Italian rightist dictator Benito Mussolini.”

“Fairly unique in U.S. history, the Bush administration has nationalized companies – insurance and mortgage guarantors – that have nothing to do with the war the country is fighting. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson had the government seize and operate the railroads because they were deemed vital to producing war materiel for the troops. They were returned to private hands in 1920, two years after the war ended. Congress also gave Wilson the authority to seize and operate other industrial plants during the war, but took away this power when the conflict concluded.”

“During World War II, FDR declared a state of emergency and seized factories that were threatened by strikes. Congress ratified these seizures by passing the War Labor Disputes Act, which allowed the president to commandeer industrial plants and use them to produce war materiel. The Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation was expanded, in a fit of war socialism, so that the government could provide items deemed key to the war effort – for example, petroleum distribution and rubber production.”

Ivan Eland looks at Bush’s Great Leap Forward into Socialism @ http://antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=13514

The Libertarian Party of Michigan is fielding of full congressional slate in 2008; 15 candidates for the House of Representatives and Scotty Boman for U.S. Senate. Today, all 16 issued a joint media release condemning the federal bailout of the financial system.

“These problems were caused by the Republican and Democratic politicians in DC and the Federal Reserve!” says Scotty Boman. “They created the government monopolies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They required them to insure no-money-down loans at artificially low rates to people without the ability to pay them back.  They inflated the money supply, driving down interest rates, and artificially inflating home and asset values.  Giving the same incompetent government regulators even more control over the market would be insane.”

Full Report on Michigan Libertarians @ http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/09/michigan-libertarians-for-congress-unanimous-dont-bail-out-the-bankers-throw-out-the-incumbents/

“A year ago, Congressman Ron Paul was just beginning to turn heads on the national electoral stage, owing to his presidential campaign’s unexpected success at raising money. Congressman Paul was briefly applauded by media elites — until the full meaning of his message began to sink in. For Congressman Paul, as almost everybody knows by now, is an uncompromising foe of Big Government, and the greatest champion of the Constitution in Washington for at least a generation.”

“Thanks to the Internet-fueled Ron Paul Revolution, ordinary Americans began wondering — in distressingly large numbers, from the point of view of entrenched special interests — about where inflation comes from, how the Federal Reserve actually works, and whether government interference in every sector of the U.S. economy — the order of the day since Roosevelt’s New Deal — is really a good idea.”

Full commentary by Charles Scalinger @ http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/sectors-mainmenu-46/381-call-ron-paul-correct-about-the-economy

“There is only sparse public support for President Bush’s plan for a $700 billion federal rescue of the battered financial industry, and strong bipartisan doubts it would resolve a crisis that has bloodied some of the country’s biggest investment companies and roiled the markets, a poll showed on Friday.”

“Despite Bush’s pleas that economic calamity looms unless Congress quickly enacts his proposal, just 30 percent back his package, according to an Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll conducted Thursday night. Another 45 percent oppose it while the rest say they don’t know.”

Full AP story @ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/09/26/politics/p082115D27.DTL

“As Congress and President Bush set to “hammering out the details” of a proposed $700 billion bailout for investment banks, reason asked free-market-friendly economists three pressing questions: How bad is the current market situation?; how bad are the current proposed bailout plans?; and what’s the one thing we should be doing that we’re not?” 

Full round-table @ http://www.reason.com/news/show/129041.html