Blackburn Statement on Proposed Bailout
President Bush and Secretary Paulson Should Start Over
Washington, Sep 24 - The following is a statement by Congressman Marsha Blackburn (TN-7) elaborating on her position regarding President Bush's proposed bailout of the country's financial system.
"I do not support a straight bailout of Wall Street firms funded by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars."
"While the situation is very serious, there are better ways to address it than the plan before us. The first step is for the President and Congressional Leaders to lay out a predictable and reasonable legislative process that will yield a responsible solution."
"To infuse more private capital into the Market, I would like to have a suspension of the Capital Gains tax considered as part of any proposal. To the extent that taxpayer funds must be used, they should be offset by spending reductions in other places, and be distributed in the form of short term bridge loans. I have also proposed a 5% across the board spending cut- excepting defense and homeland security funds- that could yield over $100 billion annually."
"Finally, this is a serious crisis and Congress and the White House need to deal with it seriously. All ideas, including those I listed above, should be on the table."
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What an ingenious proposal, Congressman! How many times have you suggested cutting spending on everything but the military as the solution to a problem? Are there no other ideas in the "American Conservatism for (Republican) Dumbies" book?
