Mike Pence Ignores Iceberg and Will Vote Against Bailout

Give our Congressman Mike Pence credit for sticking to his ideology: Pence issues statement to GOP colleagues on rejecting bailout plan.

Everyone but Pence and his gang agree that there is a major problem in the financial sector of our economy. Everyone but Pence and his gang agree that doing nothing will cause harm to those who never set foot on Wall Street or bought a stock.

Which makes me imagine Congressman Pence as being on the Titanic. Having heard that the iceberg has ripped open the ship, he ignores the call to go to the lifeboats thinking he can swim to shore. Which would not be so bad, but he wants to keep everyone else from those lifeboats, too.

Theories have a place. They give us a push to experiment. However, theorists who do not change their theories to fit the facts do not have a place in government. The best word I can think of for these types is cranks. The worst description? Dangerous lunatics.

The farmers and small businesses of my area need credit. Without the bailout, they will not have credit.

We all should take pause at what we are undertaking with this bailout. That much is true. That we are altering capitalism in this country is also true. That inaction spells a greater harm to our economic system, to the world's economic system is also true.

For a more conservative criticism of Pence, take a look at The bailout and conservative principles: Too many to fail from Professor Stephen Bainbridge:

What so-called conservatives like Malkin forget is that right-wingers have an ideology, but true conservatives have principles...

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In sum, there are some principles worth fighting and dying for. But the “freedom to fail” damn sure isn’t one of them. I’m as much a limited government guy as the next fellow, but let’s not pretend that we live in some libertarian utopia in which the state has no role in the market. As Edmund Burke once observed, albeit in a radically different context, there is “a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.” At that limit, the state properly steps in. When the risk of the entire economy going down the tubes is as high as it is at the moment, preservation of ordered liberty requires state intervention.

I am also struck by an absence in the plan which goes unmentioned by Pence (and others) - what is our exit strategy? Every business plan should have a provision for getting the investor out. Time for us to sort out that detail but its absence from Pence's statement is important. It strikes me even harder that his protests are nothing but a foolish consistency for which we would still pick up the tab. We need to replace him with someone with a better mind. Vote for Barry Welch.

Meanwhile, more writing on the bailout:

• A Bailout Is Just a Start
• Bankrupt Economics
• Why Vote No?
• Bailout 'doomed to failure'
• Treasury Would Emerge With Vast New Power
• Bailout Plan in Hand, House Braces for Tough Vote
• Opening Step on Long Road
• A parable of greed
• No longer will the US taxpayer bail out Wall Street recklessness' (Pelosi speaks)
• Banking shares lead FTSE 100 slide
• Thousands of City jobs yet to go, CBI says
• US banking crisis: midnight delivers the $700bn deal: half now, half later (video)
• If Hank Paulson is wrong, we can only pray
• Bartlett on the Bailout
• Bail Out With Me Tonight, Bail Out
• Bailout Hits Divided House:

  Despite the rescue plan in the works, the global banking sector is still deeply troubled. Even conservatively run community banks are fighting for survival, the WSJ reports, citing the tale of State of Franklin Bancshares Inc. in Johnson City, Tenn. The bank, "a victim of the mortgage meltdown", recently had to sell to an out-of-state rival. Its slip-up? It avoided risky mortgages, but still it invested heavily in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred stock, assets that are virtually worthless right now. Citing Independent Community Bankers of America, the WSJ says dozens more regional banks will fail, 40 or so will be bought up in distressed sale and hundreds more will need to recapitalize. A year or two ago, a lender like State of Franklin would have likely been in the sights of Wachovia, which earlier this decade rolled up bank after bank. Now, it too is on the block. According to the WSJ, Wachovia was negotiating on Sunday night to sell itself off to Wells Fargo & Co. NYT has a different source evidently, saying Citigroup and Wells Fargo are both vying for Wachovia, the fourth largest U.S. bank.