My Letter to Nancy Pelosi on the Bailout
I live in San Francisco, so my local representative also happens to be speaker of the House: Nancy Pelosi. As you might imagine, I am 100% opposed to any bailout plan for Wall Street. Like many other Americans, I have written my representative to oppose the bill. The ratio of letters and calls has been on the order of 100 to 1 against any bailout. Yet our “representatives” seem poised to defy the will of the overwhelming majority of the American people and bail out the Wall Street hogs anyway. What does this say about the state of our Democracy? Nothing good, that is for certain.
The letter I wrote is below. Feel free to copy it in any portion and send it to your own representative. We must do everything in our power to defeat the bailout.
Dear Speaker Pelosi,
Last week’s defeat of the bailout of Wall Street was a victory for the American tax payer. You know well that the overwhelming majority of the American people, more than 90%, are dead-set opposed to any bailout of any kind. Recall that you and your colleagues are supposed to represent the will of the people, not defy it.
The Senate’s passage of essentially the same bill is a major disappointment, and indicative more of the fact that not all of them are up for reelection than anything else.
It would be the height of arrogance to assume you know better than the people you have been elected to represent. The drafters of this bill are asking for $10,000 from every American family to prop up the corporate hogs that got us into this mess in the first place.
Recall the dire predictions made when the first request for a bailout was made: the sky will fall overnight if we don’t pass this bill right now! Many days have passed. The sky has not fallen. Nor will it.
In a free market, businesses must be allowed to fail if the market is to remain healthy. A massive deleveraging, while painful, is exactly what this country needs. Our over-reliance on easy credit and massive debt has pushed the entire country to the verge of bankruptcy. We need to take our medicine and pay the piper now - delaying it will only make it worse in the end. Yet proponents of this disatrous bill are only asking us to go still further into debt. You must not allow this to happen.
Please do not succumb to the pressure from Wall Street hogs and bankers with ulterior motives. You know the right thing to do: follow the will of the people. And the people say, NO BAILOUT. Period.