Politicians on the Bailouts

HuckPAC has posted an article by Mike Huckabee about the bailouts. I thought you all might find it interesting. Here are a couple of paragraphs from it.

The idea of a government bailout in which we’d entrust $700 billion to one man without Congressional oversight or accountability is absurd. My party or not, that is insanity and I believe unconstitutional.

Will there be far-reaching consequences without some intervention? Probably, but we honestly don’t know since we’ve really never seen this level of greed and stupidity all rolled into one massive move. But may I suggest that letting “Uncle Sugar” step in and bail out the billionaires who made the mess will be far worse and will start a long line of companies and individuals who will demand the same of the government---which last time I checked means that they will be demanding it out of YOU and ME. This is not money that Congress is risking from THEIR pockets or future, but ours. Many if not most of us have already experienced lost value on our homes, retirement accounts, and pensions. Now they’d like for us to assume some further risks so they won’t have to.

I like Mike Huckabee. There are a lot more good parts to his article, but you will have to zoom over there and read it yourself.

As far as John McCain goes. . .
According to Yahoo News, he wants to his campaign in order to zoom back to DC and "work for a bipartisan solution". McCain also said that he would stop all advertising, fundraising, and campaign events.

So is McCain sacrificing politics for the good of the country, or is he just being a smooth politician?

For more opinions on McCain's move to ditch his campaign, go to Kevin Tracy.

OneMom also has an interesting post about Ron Paul's opinion on the bailouts. And as an aside, Ron Paul recently endorsed Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin for President.

40 Days for Life Begins

The 40 Days for Life officially begins today. If you would like to join others in your area who are praying to end abortion, click here to see a map of all the locations. Almost every state is participating this time around. If you honestly can't get to the abortion clinic to pray, pray at home. Please join me in pleading with God to change the hearts of America.

Whatever Happened to Public

I have been reading through Acts and have noticed how often the church did things as a group in public. (And, for the sake of clarity, I mean open to the view of all.) Here are some of the things that the church did in the view of all.

1. Preached the Gospel. (Acts 5:42)
2. Held meetings. (Acts 5:12)
3. Confessed sins and burned sorcery scrolls (Acts 19:19)
4. Timothy is told to rebuke publicly and to read Scripture publicly. (I Tim. 5:20 and 4:13)

So my question is, what happened to this concept? I don't think that I have ever been a part of a church that did anything publicly. And often those that do are thought of as crazy zealots. We say that our services are public and they are in the sense that anyone can come. But what happened to church in full view of all?

Bailout Opinions from Around the Web

Walter Williams has a very good column about the bailouts. The ending paragraph sums it up pretty well.

The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. In fact, what we see now is a market correction to foolhardy government policy. Congress' move to bailout lenders and borrowers who made poor decisions will simply create incentives for people to make unwise decisions in the future. English philosopher Herbert Spencer said, "The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."

OneMom writes a great post about the ease with which the government can suck 700 billion from our pockets. Yet the average person has to jump through lots of hoops just to rent an apartment.

JR at A Keyboard and a .45 laments the insanity of it all.

Even the NY Times has a decent piece by Paul Kugman. These are the last two paragraphs.

And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving.

I hope I’m wrong about this. But let me say it again: Treasury needs to explain why this is supposed to work — not try to panic Congress into giving it a blank check. Otherwise, no deal.

And last, but not least, Matt at Search for Freedom has a post about how neither Obama or McCain is handling the situation well.

Truthfully, I’d like to hear the candidates promote personal financial responsibility. The American economy will only be truly successful when citizens collectively decide to stop living beyond their means.

These bailouts remind me of parents that coddle rebelious tweens. They end up with even more rebellious teens. Sometimes the best way to "help" is to let the person (or system) take the consequences. I don't see anything good coming from this.

Rifle Girl

My brother e-mailed me this with a note saying this reminded him of my daughter in 7 years. With my husband, he might just be right.

When I was in high school, the rifle girls were like the drill team except that they twirled wooden guns instead of flags. This kind of rifle girl is probably more useful.

Constitution Day

Thanks to JR at A Keyboard and a .45 for pointing out that it is Constitution Day. The Constitution really is an amazing document. It is too bad we've come so far from the original intent. If you would like your own copy for free from The Heritage Foundation, click here.

Parental Involvement Laws

It looks like Texas' parental involvement laws have a significant impact on the number of teenagers getting abortions. According to NRO writer Michael New, the best case study of a pro-life parental-involvement law appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2006. This study analyzed the Texas parental-notification law that took effect in 2000. The authors found that the law resulted in statistically significant declines in the abortion rate in Texas among 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, and 17-year-olds. Now the authors did find some evidence that some 17-year-olds were able to circumvent the law by waiting until their 18th birthday to have an abortion. However, they found little evidence that Texas minors were circumventing the law by obtaining abortions in neighboring states.

My recently released Family Research Council study contributes to this body of research. It is actually the first study that compares the effect of different types of pro-life parental-involvement legislation. The results indicate that parental-involvement laws reduce the minor abortion rate by 13 percent — a finding that is consistent with other research on the subject. However, state laws that require parental consent instead of parental notification are even more effective, reducing the abortion rate by an average of 19 percent. This finding held true for all age groups that were analyzed — 17-year-olds, 16-year-olds, and 15-year-olds.

I think that these laws are a step in the right direction on two fronts. 1. Reducing abortions is a good thing. 2. Parents need to be more involved in their teens' lives anyway.

All of these kinds of laws will be done away with if Obama and a Democrat House and Senate have their way. Obama has said he will sign FOCA which will undue all parental involvement laws as well as other restrictions on abortions.