Saturday, March 29, 2008

An Open Letter to Every Elected Official

President/Senator/Congressman, I find it totally unacceptable that this administration is even considering the possibility of bailing out troubled home owners, for a litany of reasons.

First, this kind of bailout can only reinforce poor decision making and risk taking in the future on the part of individuals and institutions. There will always be people looking for a short cut. Don't reward this kind of irresponsible behavior with my tax dollars.

Second, a bailout will create a situation where generations of potential home buyers are frozen out of the market, because of the current disparity between home prices and personal income is never going to be rectified.

Third, bailing out the banks is one thing. I consider maintaining and supporting the US banking system with tax payer dollars to be important and worthwhile. A healthy US banking system is matter of national security. Bailing out troubled US banks, benefits every single US tax payer. Bailing out the individual home owners bails out a staggering small percentage of the population.

Fourth, the home owners who are being put out of their homes are not destitute, they aren't unemployed, they don't face impending doom. They can easily rent, like millions of people who were frozen out of the market prior to the beginning of this price correction.

Fifth, if the government is going to bail out home owners who took on too much debt, will the government be bailing out people who took on too much student loan debt? How about the individuals who took on too much credit card debt? How about just expunging the criminal records of, say everyone under the age of 25? Those people could always plead ignorance or youthful stupidity, just like all the home owners who claim to be victimized by predatory lenders. Its a slippery slope President/Senator/Congressman, where does it end?

Sixth, a bailout of the individual borrowers punishes everyone who decided to buy within their means. It punishes everyone who chose to wait for a market correction, because it wasn't hard to see coming. It makes me wish I had been dumber and more irresponsible. Consider the illogic of my last statement. When would any normal, intelligent, rational person make that kind of statement? I think it illustrates just how foolish a bail out for the troubled, individual borrowers is.

Finally President/Senator/Congressman, I am highly offended that my tax dollars are being given to someone who was irresponsible and whose only plight is that of having to rent instead of own their home. Please do not condemn current and future generations to the same fate because they were unwilling or unable to have the opportunity to make a bad decision.

Sincerely,

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