The
Do-Something Congress

by Ron Paul

It has not been a good week for the
Republic. It took quite a bit of trampling of the Constitution, but the bailout
bill passed, as I suspected it would.
The bailout failed the
first time it was brought to the House. Undaunted, the Senate pressed on by
attaching the bailout as an amendment to another House-passed bill that was
pending in the Senate. The new bailout version had new taxes, so according to
the Constitution it should not have originated in the Senate.
The rallying cry heard all
over the Hill the past two weeks was that Congress must act. Our economy is
facing a meltdown. Would this bill fix it? Nobody could really explain how it
would. In fact, few demonstrated any real understanding of credit markets, of
derivatives, of credit default swaps or mortgage-backed securities. If they did,
they would have known better than to vote for this bill. All they knew was that
this administration was saying some frightening things, and asking for a lot of
money. And when has Congress ever been able to come up with a better solution to
a problem than to throw more of your money at it? So that is what Congress did,
enacting a financial PATRIOT Act in the process.
In its embarrassment at
being called a "Do-Nothing Congress" the 110th Congress took decisive action and
did SOMETHING. No matter that it was the wrong thing. In fact, it wasn't until
the Senate had a chance to load it up with even MORE spending, when it was
finally inflationary and horrible enough, at $850 billion instead of a mere $700
billion, that it passed – and with a comfortable margin, in spite of constituent
calls still coming in overwhelmingly against it. 57 members switched their
vote!
The market went down anyway. Our nation is now just that much more in
the hole. You will pay your part of this mess through inflation, and very likely
hyperinflation.
Sometimes doing nothing is
much better than thrashing about aimlessly – when one is caught in quicksand,
for example, or when one doesn't understand economics and finds oneself in the
position Congress was in for the past two weeks, with decades of irresponsible
monetary policy coming to a head. Why should we trust the same people who said
just a few months ago that the economy was perfectly sound? The same people who
just knew there were weapons of mass destruction? The same people that crammed
the PATRIOT Act down our throats? Why not consult the people who had the
foresight and understanding to see this coming? They would have recommended such
logical actions as repealing the Community Reinvestment Act, which forces banks
to make bad loans, or allowing the market to set interest rates instead of the
Federal Reserve system. How about abolishing the Federal Reserve altogether?
There are many things that could have been done, but don’t expect Congress take
a course of action that comes from a place of understanding and competence when
they could just spend money.
This bailout will be the
legacy of the 110th "Do-Something" Congress, along with record-low approval
ratings. Here's hoping the 111th Congress will be a "Do the Right Thing"
Congress, and will focus on repealing and abolishing what is wrong with
government instead of reinforcing it.