The Trouble with a Bailout

President Obama and Speaker Pelosi have tried it their way for more than a year and a half now – expanding the size and scope of the federal government, dramatically increasing federal spending and growing the national debt, and squandering more than two trillion dollars on taxpayer funded bailouts and so-called stimulus bills filled with wasteful and unnecessary pork barrel spending.  Yet as their promises of creating new jobs and resuscitating our stagnate economy continue, the facts prove those promises to be empty ones.  Unemployment still hovers around 10 percent across the nation as employers shed more and more jobs – a number that would be even higher were it not for the 1.2 million workers who walked away from the labor force in the past three months because they are unable to find work.  The latest reports show a downgrade of estimated economic growth in 2011.  Consumer spending remains tepid and consumer credit recently dropped for the fifth straight month in June.

However, rather than realizing the economic policy of bailouts and federal spending is simply not working, Speaker Pelosi called the House back into session to pass yet another billion dollar bailout bill.  At the hefty price tag of $26 billion, this latest bailout bill will be used to prop up programs that should be the responsibility of state and local governments – mainly state education and Medicaid plans. 

Even with the trillions of dollars spent in the last 18 months on so-called stimulus packages and bailout bills, unemployment continues to hover around 10 hile economic growth remains stagnate, while our national debt has grown to almost equal to our country’s entire GDP.  I believe I join most of my constituents when I say, enough is enough.  That’s because Oklahomans understand the principle that borrowing money with no end in sight is simply not sound economic policy.  Our state constitution requires a balanced budget, which we accomplish each year even if that means cuts to state programs. 

Americans are facing tough times right now; but we Oklahomans have suffered through much worse.  And through our suffering we have learned the importance of hard work, of financial responsibility, and of sacrifice.