Published Saturday, October 11, 2008
Westmoreland: No confidence in government
The Newnan Times-Herald
Congressman Lynn Westmoreland's tone Saturday at the Coweta Republican Breakfast was befitting for the state of the economy.
Much of the world watched last week as the Dow Jones industrials suffered massive losses. On Friday, after a roller coaster session of trading, the Dow finished down 128 points -- or a paper loss for the day of about $100 billion, according to the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index -- giving the blue chips an eight-day loss of just under 2,400 points.
The $700 billion financial bailout package was signed into law on Oct. 3, in hopes of boosting the economy by allowing the government to start buying up troubled assets from financial institutions affected by the record number of home foreclosures.
The U.S House passed the rescue measure on Oct. 2 in a vote of 263-171, with Westmoreland among those in opposition.
According to Westmoreland Saturday, the economy is in "crisis," in part, because of a series of bad decisions that date back to the implementation of the Community Redevelopment Act of the 1970s.
"This has mushroomed into a much bigger problem," said Westmoreland -- and he blames "government intrusion into the private sector."
The rush to pass a "rescue measure" began on Sept. 18, according to Westmoreland, when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson "pulled the fire alarm" at the White House. At that point, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, got on board prompting Congress to act fast.
What followed, according to Westmoreland, was a series of unsuccessful attempts to correct the economy by bailing out financial institutions like IndyMac, Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- and at the hefty cost of approximately $800 billion.
Westmoreland and other congressmen doubted whether this latest rescue plan would be any more successful at righting the economy, and Paulson reportedly admitted he didn't look into other alternatives. Westmoreland and others discussed their own plan to get at the root of the problem -- a credit crunch -- to no avail.
According to Westmoreland, he voted "no" to the $700 billion bailout because he was hoping "if we could defeat it, we could incorporate more free market stuff."
"We weren't voting no because we wanted to do nothing or to kill it, we wanted to make it better," he said.
Unfortunately, time was no longer an option when "presidential politics got involved." According to Westmoreland, both of the presidential candidates made a lot of phone calls and a lot of promises.
"We should have been given more time to work out a good bill," said Westmoreland. "There wasn't even a committee hearing on it. We were told that we needed to vote yes to put confidence in the market, but $700 billion is a lot for confidence. And it didn't work."
Only time will tell if the government bailout has any positive effect on the volatile market.
"I don't think people have lost confidence in free market or capitalism, I think they've lost confidence in the government," said Westmoreland. "I am so disappointed in the leadership. Mr. Paulson shouldn't have pulled the fire alarm."
When asked what he could do to restore confidence, Westmoreland didn't have a quick or easy answer.
"That's the bad thing about politics -- the train's already left the station. Maybe we can straighten this out, but we need a complete change in leadership," he said, citing committee chairs with seniority, many of whom voted for the rescue plan for what he perceives as the wrong reason. "We have to stop letting media drive what we do," he continued. "If you're governed by political correctness, you're going down the wrong road. Washington has become a corrupt place."
When he was asked what the country would look like with Sen. Barack Obama as president, Westmoreland stated that he was "scared of Obama."
"[Obama] wants to raise taxes, which is the one thing we don't need in the fragile state of our economy," he said. Westmoreland added that he'd also be scared of what Obama would do to the nation's school system and health care.
"I never thought we'd be on the verge of electing someone like Obama," he continued. Westmoreland took issue with Obama's policies, the "people he surrounds himself with," and even accused him of playing the "race card."
Despite the setbacks in the nation, "we will find a way to come back," said Westmoreland. "We are resilient people. Give us the tools and we will come back."
Westmoreland, the incumbent Republican congressman from Grantville, is being challenged in the November election by Newnan attorney Stephen Camp.
