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A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. – Gerald Ford, 1974

With the current talk of the proposed auto bailout, the media is focusing in large part on the union auto workers.  If the auto companies don’t get this proposed bailout, or if they have to file bankruptcy, thousands of retirees will lose their health care and pensions, and many more thousands of workers will lose their health care, benefits and their jobs.  It shouldn’t come as any surprise that they are on the brink of total collapse when, thanks to the strongarming of the unions, every worker cost the big three about twice what it cost similarly skilled workers outside of Detroit.  The unions negotiated hefty contracts which the auto companies had virtually no choice but to accept.  Now, those very contracts that were supposed to guarantee workers are what may cause them all to lose their jobs.  I heard on the radio this morning that Crysler shut down a plant that makes minivans, yet thanks to union contracts they still are paying the regular salaries and benefits of the workers for the next two years.  TWO YEARS TO PAY WORKERS WHO ARE NOT WORKING?  OF COURSE YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL.

I don’t blame the worker.  It is the union, an antiquated and unnecessary holdover from the industrial revolution, that has destroyed American manufacturing… and it is the union that will drive the final nails in each of the big three.  But the lesson to learn here is about more than the perils of collective bargaining and union exclusivity.

Paraphrasing President Ford, any time you empower someone to give you everything, they can take it all away.  We’re seeing that first hand with the autoworkers.  If the big three fail, how many thousands of workers will lose not just their income, but their benefits and health care that they were promised for life?  Some people are suggesting that this makes the case for government sponsored universal health care and greater benefits for all.  Clearly they aren’t paying attention.

Think about it.  Thousands of workers face devastating effects if the automakers can’t afford to continue paying for their health care or pensions.  Tens of millions of Americans would face equally devastating effects if the responsibility of health care was left to the federal government.  Sure, you can think the Federal government couldn’t fail… but that’s the same thing people thought about Ford and GM.  Now look at them.

This needs to be a wake up call to Americans.  Stop believing in a nanny state and give up your welfare mentality.  It is not your employer or your government’s responsibility to take care of you.  If you don’t get that, at some point you will be disappointed.  Social Security, Universal Health Care, Unemployment Benefits, etc.  Stop relying on someone else to do what you need to be doing for yourself.  Its hard.  The liberal establishment has been moving us into a socialistic mentality for some time… and now everyone relies on the government for much more than was ever originally intended.  That reliance gives them and lawmakers power, but it also invariably leads to collapse.  Just like the automakers, there is no where to go but down, unless we change our path.

Today its the autoworkers.  Tomorrow its another union company.  Eventually it will be the American public.  We will all be one big union, and collectively we will all fail.

To all Republicans out there who supported the $700B bailout, the AIG bailouts, the Fannie & Freddie Bailouts, etc… you look like a hypocrite not supporting the auto bailout now.  There is a lesson to be learned here.  While the financial bailout may have had a more direct impact on our economy, the auto bailout likely has a more direct impact on America’s work force.  If a bailout isn’t right now (it’s not), then it wasn’t right then (it wasn’t).  ALWAYS VOTE YOUR PRINCIPLES.

Principles are there to guide your hand through the darkness when competing interests cloud the waters.  Many forgot that when they heard the sky was falling and the only salvation was the $700B bailout.  Hopefully by now you’ve learned your lesson.

Stop with the bailouts and reclaim the party’s soul.  It might be a small gesture and might have political costs… but enough is enough already.  Better to lose and be right, than win and be wrong.  It’s not just your political career at stake, its our country.

I’m so freaking sick of this bailout nonsense.  If companies are not allowed to fail in this country, then how are better ideas supposed to succeed?  From AIG, to forgiving your mortgage balance, to the big three auto companies… it seems like everyone is getting rewarded for failure.

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Those of you who stop by regularly know that I once owned a family mortgage business.  The writing was on the wall about a year ago this time, but we tried to make it work not knowing just how long the industry would suffer.  We cut down to nothing, lowered our expenses, lost our personal health care, and did everything we could to stay afloat.  I found a way to eat lunch for $2.14 a day, and if I could bring it cheaper than that I would.  I ate less at dinner just so I would have leftovers for the next day.  There I was with five years of payments left on my gas-guzzling SUV, picking up Burger King receipts off the ground for the coupon on back.  I did everything I could to limit the bad and keep from going belly up.  At home things were equally as tight.  We limited travel and virtually all discretionary expenses, got rid of cable, stopped buying soda and beer and snacks.  We sold some stuff and even rented a room to a family member.  We did anything we could to get by.

And that’s what you have to do.  Through all of it, we kept making our household payments (mortgage, cars, etc).  Our lights stayed on and the water kept flowing.  We found a way to make it work, and we were blessed.

Since then I’ve been given a reprieve of sorts.  My new businesses are growing, and I’ve found ways to grow them nimbly while keeping expenses low.  And if my new businesses fail to put food on the table and keep things paid… then I’ll do something else… because that’s what big boys do.

I do have sympathy for people who lose their jobs.  Believe me, I understand.  When things got tight, I was praying five times a day for the money to make my next mortgage payment.  I worked in the office during the day and at home on the computer at night, all the while applying for other jobs.  When you are laid off, you have no job and have to start over.  When you have to close your business, you have a no job and have to start over… but you also likely have rent payments, equipment leases and other burdens to take care of.  Its not easy… nor should it be.

But the reason most of us share a dream of striving for our own success is that we know what its like to fail or are deathly afraid of finding out.  The reason we understand the value of a dollar is that we know what its like to be broke, or how hard it is to get the next dollar versus how easy it is to watch them go.  Its not supposed to be easy.  But success would not be possible without the potential to fail.

If I didn’t have to close my business, what incentive would I have had to cut expenses, trim the fat or start something new?  If I was prevented from failing, I’d still be going deeper into debt, spinning my wheels and getting nowhere.  What good would that do for society?  What good would that do my family?

I’m sickened by what I hear and read.  I’ve complained before about people gaming the system to get a better mortgage.  Now even the mainstream press has caught on.  The San Fransisco Chronicle asked if you are an idiot if you keep making your payments.  No, I’m not an idiot, I just have integrity.

Maybe I’m the only one.

The graveyard of capitalism is littered with companies whose time was up.  Whether their ideas or their industries failed doesn’t matter… they weren’t able to adapt and change and now they are gone.  Why should today’s auto industry be any different?  Why is your home mortgage any different?  What kind of precident are we setting when we bail everyone out?  Is personal responsibility dead?  If so, what does that say about the American Dream?  What about our nation’s future?

What incentive does the next company have to do things better, or cheaper, or more efficient when the old guys are propped up and prevented from failing?  What incentive do you have to pay your mortgage when they guy down the street stopped only to be rewarded?  Why did my wife and I use our hard earned money to buy our interest rate down while there others who haven’t worked as hard are getting their rates lowered for free?

This bailout nonsense can not continue to go on.  Can’t people see its only getting worse?  I’m sorry if the auto companies fail, but you have to think management and the strangehold of unions was to blame.  I’m sorry if some other company fails… but its not the end of the world.

So what happens when you can’t pay your mortgage?  You lose your house.  That’s how it should be.  You are not a failure and you shouldn’t be ashamed, but you should grow up.  Take your licks, have some responsibility, and understand that free markets have to be allowed to work.  Remember when times were good?  Remember that dream of ultimate success?  None of it would be possible if you couldn’t fail.

Have too many people gotten into too much debt and failed to save?  Absolutely, and I’ll be the first to raise my hand.  And now I have to dig myself out.

Isn’t that what everyone should be doing?  Isn’t that the lesson we should send to our children?  Shouldn’t we suffer the effects of our excesses so we don’t repeat our own mistakes?  Or as a nation have we chosen that the goal of success isn’t important if failure is at risk?

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This nation would have never been formed had the founders been afraid to fail.  As a people how can we continue if there is no prospect of success?

Bank intimidation + Voter Fraud = ACORN.  So what did Barack Obama train ACORN to do? And why did he pay them $800,000?

Don’t you dare question Barney Frank or his connection to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Community Reinvestment Act or how that all caused the current economic crisis.  Don’t question Barack Obama who received over $126,000 from Fannie and Freddie over three years, or Chris Dodd who got even more.  Those are not valid questions says Representative Frank… its just racist.

Frank charged that conservatives aim to shift blame for the market meltdown away from Wall Street and toward minority-lending laws like the federal Community Reinvestment Act.

“The bizarre notion that the Community Reinvestment Act . . . somehow is the cause of the whole problem, (conservatives) don’t mind that,” the lawmaker said. “They’re aware that the affordable-housing goals of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and) the Community Reinvestment Act (aim to help) poor people. And let’s be honest, the fact that some poor people are black doesn’t hurt either from their standpoint.”

Up until this year, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were involved almost half of the mortgage loans in this country.  In 2008, that percentage was closer to 80%.  A large percentage of those loans that have failed have been alternative or subprime loans… the type of loans that Democrats like Barney Frank and the CRA were pumping.  Fannie and Freddie, thanks to the Democrats in congress, created the market for these loans, encouraged other banks to make these loans, and bought/sold these loans.

These loans helped to exacerbate the decline in housing prices and were a direct cause of the current financial collapse.  They are what has frozen the credit market… the very freeze the federal government is trying to correct with the $700 Billion bailout.

This is not about race.  Repeat that again, THIS IS NOT ABOUT RACE.  Foreclosures are blind, they don’t care about the color of your skin.  Neither does money, nor Wall Street, nor the bank down the street.  Once again, the only people injecting race into politics are the supporters of Barack Obama.  Barney Frank is a toad, a vile unapologetic toad, who rather than take responsibility for his complete and utter failing in regards to Fannie and Freddie is playing racial politics.

Barney Frank has proven, time and time again, that he is not going to allow himself to be accountable… he wasn’t accountable when a gay prostitution ring was uncovered running out of his home, and he won’t held accountable now for failing the American people and causing a financial collapse that led to a $200 Billion bailout of Fannie and Freddie, an $85 Billion dollar bailout of AIG, and a $700B Bailout of our credit markets.

If an illegal enterprise was running out of your home, thanks to the RICO Act, the federal government could hold you responsible or take your assets… even if you didn’t know about it.  And if you were the CEO of a company who kept pumping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, encouraging them to do risky loans, even though others were warning you of the danger… you would be fired… and then you would be trotted out before some Congressional hearing and told how pathetic you are and how you made too much money.

Yet Barney Frank is not held to those same standards… apparently he’s not held to any standard at all. Instead of holding him accountable, he has been lauded by Democrats on Capitol Hill for his help crafting the bailout bill.  The very bill that would not have been necessary if Barney Frank had listened to the warnings about Fannie and Freddie in recent years.

No, don’t dare question Barney… he can’t be held accountable for anything.  You just don’t like risky loans because some of them were made to brown people… you racist!

And watch out… this is just another example of what the American people will have to deal with if Barack Obama is given the keys to the White House.  He won’t need goon squads anymore… he’ll just send some toad like Barney Frank or the Associated Press out to label you a racist.

While McCain was trying to fix the problem, Obama took over $126,000 from Fannie & Freddie and turned a blind eye, putting his own political contributions and self interest above our country.  Yeah I know, he supposedly sent a letter to the Treasury Secretary… great.  John McCain actually co-sponsored a bill, went on record trying to get it fixed, was in the papers and on tv.  Where was Obama?  Oh, yeah… counting his money.

Obama could have tried to lead, but he didn’t.  He does what he always does… nothing.  And he was paid for his silence.  As were Chris Dodd and others.

Want to blame someone for this financial mess.  There is a lot of blame to go around… and much of it falls on the shoulders of Barack Obama, his advisers, and other congressional Democrats.

Ken Blackwell has a great column at NRO exploring ACORN, Fannie & Freddie, Barack Obama, and the root causes of this economic meltdown.

Congressional Democrats, and specifically Mr. Obama, are now saying that the problem underlying all this is “deregulation,” pushed by the Republicans. There are two fundamental flaws with this allegation.

First, this is not deregulation. This is not the private sector. Fannie and Freddie are government creations, that pay their executives millions of dollars but are shielded with your tax money from suffering the downside risk of the market. Engage in racetrack-style financing, they must be strictly controlled. Deregulation is about keeping government from hobbling the private sector and hamstringing its ingenuity and productivity. Deregulation does not apply.

Second,  Republicans have tried to rein in Fannie and Freddie. Republican attempts to reform them in 1999 failed. In 2003, when Alan Greenspan testified about how Fannie and Freddie’s loose practices could endanger our financial system, it was Democrat Barney Frank who said these institutions were fundamentally sound, and should be more aggressive in getting loans to low-income people. In 2005, a Republican reform passed the Senate Banking Committee on a party-line vote, only to be blocked by Democrats from passing the full Senate. And in 2006 when John McCain spoke on the Senate floor of the need to reform Fannie and Freddie immediately, Democrats (including Barack Obama) would not respond.

You can also see where Fannie and Freddie look for protection by where they direct their money. Public records show that the top two recipients of Fannie/Freddie campaign contributions are Sens. Chris Dodd and Barack Obama, taking $165,000 and $126,000, respectively. Dodd, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, and Mr. Obama, who says he’s going to remedy the whole situation.

The American people need to know how we got here.  These are serious times and we are at a potential turning point in this country.  Whatever happens, it is going to hurt, but its time for real leadership and real reform.

But in order to understand how to get out of this mess, we have to understand how we got here.  The Democrats are still trying to funnel money into bogus partisan programs (ACORN) instead of trying to fix the problem and protect the American taxpayer.  This is not George Bush’s fault. This is not John McCain fault.  Both of them tried to fix this mess before it blew up.  But the Democrats were too busy being paid off by Fannie and Freddie, supporting their liberal friends, and refusing to be accountable for their disastrous approach.  They were warned.  But they wanted to keep playing for pay, and all of us got burned.

I’ve been saying it. So are many others. The actions of John McCain over this bailout issue are the actions of a leader. The actions of Barack Obama over this bailout are of a follower.

Via Powerline:

Most recently, McCain figured out that he needed to get back to Washington to engage, and if possible provide leadership in, the momentous issue of the financial sector bailout. While McCain opted to help make something happen, Obama said he could be reached by phone if anything did happen.

Obama’s position was untenable, so he eventually followed McCain back to Washington.

Hoping to cover for their “follower” of a presidential candidate, Democrats are claiming that McCain has done more harm than good in the legislative debate. Although this is always a possibility with McCain (and, indeed, just about anyone who is willing to lead), the Democrats’ case is absurd.

Their argument is that Congress was on the verge of a deal until McCain entered the picture and caused Republican House members to block it. The problems with this script are several. First, there is no evidence that House Republicans were ever on board with any deal. Second, the support of House Republicans is not needed to pass bailout legislation. The Democrats control the House.

The Democrats counter the second point by saying that a majority of House Dems won’t support a deal unless House Republicans provide “cover.” But this argument raises more problems than it addresses. First, it is a serious condemnation of House Dems (too gutless to do what they think is right, even in the face of a potential economic meltdown). Second it is a serious condemnation of Nancy Pelosi (too ineffective to whip her troops into line even in the face of a potential economic meltdown). Third, it casts serious doubt on the wisdom of the deal that McCain is falsely accused of scuttling. If the deal made sense, House Dems wouldn’t believe they need “cover” from House Republicans.

Fourth, the “cover” argument shows what a non-factor Obama is in all of this. The Dems complain (preposterously) that McCain has riled up House Republicans or failed to bring them around. Meanwhile, no one seems to be asking why Obama hasn’t helped the House leadership obtain sufficient support from House Dems.

There’s a reason why this question isn’t being asked. Obama is lightweight from whom leadership is not, and should not, be expected.

This is the BEST video I have seen about the crisis. The most accurate, the most detailed, and backed up by facts. Its a little shy of 10 minutes, but is worth watching in its entirety. Watch it, pass it on to your friends. Link to it. Embed it. Do whatever you want. The media won’t tell you the whole truth. But here it is.