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For a moment today, sanity returned to the United States and our duly elected Representatives actually listened to their constituents and voted down the proposed Bailout by a vote of 228-205. I’m sure if it were not an election year we would not have been so lucky, but regardless the system actually worked today for once.

If you turn on the mainstream media the next few days they will all be crying about how our whole economic system is going to collapse because the bailout did not pass. Do not be fooled. The truth is our system is going to crash regardless of whether the bailout passed or not. There are too many greedy incompetent companies holding worthless assets for anything other than a crash to occur. The question is whether we are going to throw good money after bad and allow the criminals who caused this problem to ride off into the sunset with no repercussions for their actions. This is about justice. We are going down, but at least they are coming with us.

The depression that is coming cannot be avoided. This country has a deep wound with a bandaid on it. We can either rip it off and get it over with quickly and begin the road to recovery or we can torture ourselves by peeling it off slowly. The bailout would just compound our problems by wasting trillion of dollars that we do not have.

There is one last matter to take care of however. Below you will find the names of the Representatives who voted in favor of the bailout. These people have done nothing to help the middle class families who are losing their homes and jobs. Instead their solution was to use taxpayer money to buy worthless assets and saddle our children with trillions of dollars of additional debt. These people must be made to pay for this horrendous decision with their jobs. It is time to clean house. Vote them out, VOTE THEM ALL OUT!

You can view the voting records both on the House of Representatives website as well as the Washington Post website.

Representatives who voted in favor of the Bailout

Alabama
Spencer Bachus
Jo Bonner
Bud Cramer
Artur Davis
Terry Everett
Mike Rogers

Arkansas
Marion Berry
John Boozman
Mike Ross
Vic Snyder

California
Howard Berman
Mary Bono
Ken Calvert
John Campbell
Lois Capps
Dennis Cardoza
Jim Costa
Susan Davis
David Dreier
Anna Eshoo
Sam Farr
Jane Harman
Wally Herger
Mike Honda
Jerry Lewis
Zoe Lofgren
Daniel Lungren
Doris Matsui
Buck McKeon
Jerry McNerney
George Miller
Gary Miller
Nancy Pelosi
George Radanovich
Laura Richardson
Jackie Speier
Ellen Tauscher
Maxine Waters
Henry Waxman

Colorado
Diana DeGette
Ed Perlmutter
Tom Tancredo

Connecticut
Rosa DeLauro
John Larson
Christopher Murphy
Christopher Shays

Delaware
Michael Castle

Florida
Allen Boyd
Corrine Brown
Ander Crenshaw
Alcee Hastings
Ron Klein
Tim Mahoney
Kendrick Meek
Adam Putnam
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Dave Weldon
Robert Wexler

Georgia
Sanford Bishop
Jim Marshall

Idaho
Michael Simpson

Illinois
Melissa Bean
Danny Davis
Rahm Emanuel
Bill Foster
Luis Gutierrez
Phil Hare
Mark Kirk
Ray LaHood
Jan Schakowsky

Indiana
Joe Donnelly
Brad Ellsworth
Mark Souder

Iowa
Leonard Boswell
David Loebsack

Kansas
Dennis Moore

Kentucky
Ron Lewis
Hal Rogers

Louisiana
Jim McCrery
Charles Melancon

Maine
Thomas Allen

Maryland
Wayne Gilchrest
Chris Van Hollen
Steny Hoyer
Dutch Ruppersberger
John Sarbanes

Massachusetts
Michael Capuano
Barney Frank
Edward Markey
James McGovern
Richard Neal
John Olver
Niki Tsongas

Michigan
Dave Camp
John Dingell
Vernon Ehlers
Dale Kildee
Sander Levin
Fred Upton

Minnesota
Keith Ellison
John Kline
Betty McCollum
James Oberstar

Mississippi
Chip Pickering

Missouri
Roy Blunt
Russ Carnahan
Jo Ann Emerson
Ike Skelton

Nevada
Jon Porter

New Jersey
Robert Andrews
Mike Ferguson
Rush Holt
Frank Pallone
Jim Saxton
Albio Sires

New Mexico
Heather Wilson

New York
Gary Ackerman
Michael Arcuri
Timothy Bishop
Yvette Clarke
Joseph Crowley
Eliot Engel
Vito Fossella
John Hall
Brian Higgins
Steve Israel
Peter King
Nita Lowey
Carolyn Maloney
Carolyn McCarthy
John McHugh
Michael McNulty
Gregory Meeks
Jerrold Nadler
Charles Rangel
Thomas Reynolds
Louise Slaughter
Edolphus Towns
Nydia Velazquez
James Walsh
Anthony Weiner

North Carolina
Bob Etheridge
Brad Miller
David Price
Melvin Watt

North Dakota
Earl Pomeroy

Ohio
John Boehner
David Hobson
Deborah Pryce
Ralph Regula
Tim Ryan
Zachary Space
Charles Wilson

Oklahoma
Dan Boren
Tom Cole

Oregon
Darlene Hooley
Greg Walden

Pennsylvania
Robert Brady
Michael Doyle
Chaka Fattah
Paul Kanjorski
Patrick Murphy
John Murtha
John Peterson
Allyson Schwartz
Joe Sestak

Rhode Island
Patrick Kennedy
James Langevin

South Carolina
Henry Brown
James Clyburn
Bob Inglis
John Spratt
Joe Wilson

Tennessee
Steve Cohen
Jim Cooper
Bart Gordon
John Tanner

Texas
Kevin Brady
Chet Edwards
Charles Gonzalez
Kay Granger
Ruben Hinojosa
Eddie Johnson
Silvestre Reyes
Pete Sessions
Lamar Smith

Utah
Chris Cannon

Virginia
Rick Boucher
Eric Cantor
Tom Davis
James Moran
Frank Wolf

Washington
Brian Baird
Norman Dicks
Rick Larsen
Jim McDermott
Adam Smith

West Virginia
Alan Mollohan
Nick Rahall

Wisconsin
Tammy Baldwin
Ron Kind
Gwen Moore
David Obey
Paul Ryan

Wyoming
Barbara Cubin

The war for the future of the United States of America is now. I strongly suggest that everyone contact their Representative as well as their Senators and voice their opposition to the proposed bailout by the US Treasury Dept of the greedy fraudsters who caused the credit and housing crisis in the first place. This is a travesty of justice and basically amounts to socialism. This will do nothing to help homeowners in distress and instead will assist the very people who created this entire mess. Because of the fraudulent loans given by greedy lenders, legitimate home buyers had to complete with deadbeat home flippers who drove up prices almost beyond reach. People that were forced to pay exhorbitant prices because of reckless money lending policies are the true victims of the housing crisis.

These fraudulent loans were resold over and over again and sliced and diced and acquired by greedy banks and investment firms who wanted the higher yields but none of the risk. Now that the risk is showing itself, they want to dump these loans on the taxpayers. So not only did these banks cause many legitimate home buyers to overpay for their homes but now they expect us to pay for their mistakes as well? It is an absolute outrage that the government would enable these criminals to steal from us not once but twice. No one props up the average American when they fail because of circumstances beyond their control, so why are we expected to bail out these greedy money launderers when they caused their own problems? If they made horrible decisions, then they should fail and go out of business, our society would be better off without them. If this proposal passes it is just going to make the inevitable collapse even worse and encourage this criminal behavior in the future. I will never vote for any politician who signs their name to this travesty of justice.

For more info on who caused this crisis and why they should not be bailed out please read here.

Senators Richard Shelby (AL) and Jim Bunning (KY) have already voiced opposition to this proposal. Even if they are outside your home state, send them a message supporting them. It only takes one Senator to filibuster this disaster and prevent it from becoming reality.

Richard Shelby (AL)
http://shelby.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorShelby.EmailSenatorShelby

Jim Bunning (KY)
http://bunning.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

Contact your Representative or Senators as well:

House of Representatives
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

Senate
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Free Market Capitalism died September 18th, 2008. There will be no funeral and not a single talking head in the media will ever mention it but it was murdered yesterday by the United States government. Instead of survival of the fittest, we now have a propping up of the gluttonous pigs. The current credit and housing crisis was caused by nothing more than pure greed and stupidity. While the average American has to face consequences for their actions, apparently the elite swindlers on Wall Street are exempt. They are too big to fail and too fat to slaughter. In case you need a primer on how the current crisis was created please read this transcript from the NPR Radio show “This American Life.” The episode titled The Giant Pool of Money provides a great explanation on the numerous factors that contributed to the current crisis.

If you want the cliff notes version let me sum it up this way. Lenders committed fraud by falsifying documents and loaning money to people who they knew could not afford to pay it back. In order to qualify as many people as possible they created exotic loans that would only work if home prices kept appreciating. The availability of these deadbeat loans drove up home prices to unsustainable levels which eventually crashed when they ran out of deadbeats. When home prices started to decline these deadbeats were trapped in loans they could not escape from with payments that reset at levels they could not afford. Massive foreclosures were the result. These loans which had been consolidated and then sliced up and resold over and over again became worthless and resulted in enormous losses for the banks and institutions that now hold them. Now the United States government is going to buy these loans from the banks with taxpayer money and basically give them a clean slate.

The real tragedy of this whole debacle is the people who had the unfortunate luck to get married or have a child or otherwise just decide to buy a home in the past 5 years. I am not talking about the flippers and investors and fraudsters who jumped in because they saw housing as a get rich quick scheme. Nor am I talking about the people who treated their homes like an ATM machine by constantly drawing out equity and increasing their debt. The people I am talking about are the ones who just wanted an affordable place to live and who decided to buy a home because they had been told their whole life that renting was a waste. They had the unfortunate timing to be faced with the greatest housing bubble ever and were forced to pay inflated prices because they were competing for homes with deadbeats who had no business buying a house and no intention to ever actually live in them. While these people still have the place to live that they wanted, its a shame that their mortgage payments are inflated by 50% every month because of the greed and gluttony of others.

Of course the people who just wanted a place to live will never see a dime of assistance from the US government. They will just be expected to pay down their inflated mortgage until hopefully someday they can break even. No the ones who will be saved are the disgusting pigs who caused the entire problem. The deadbeats who artificially drove up home prices have walked away and left the banks holding the bag. The banks who created these exotic deadbeat loans and now hold these “assets” will have them bought by the US government and removed from their balance sheet.

The losers in all of this are the lucky US taxpayers who get to pay for all of this irresponsibility with even more federal debt. The other losers are people who just wanted to buy a home and had the unfortunate luck of doing so in the past 5 years. The inflated prices they paid went to deadbeats and fraudsters who are now double dipping by getting bail outs from the federal government. Meanwhile if the average Joe falls on hard times and gets sick or loses his job the banks and credit card companies made sure to have a new bankruptcy law passed a few years ago that makes it nearly impossible for the average person to ever receive relief.

Perhaps the most disgustingly ironic move is that the SEC has stopped short selling on financial stocks to allow them to recover. Companies like Goldman Sachs have been guilty of naked short selling for years and now when it happens to them they go crying to the SEC for assistance. This whole travesty is like that whiny kid on the playground who tries to change the rules when they start to lose. It is now apparent that there are 2 sets of rules in this country, the rules for you and me and the rules for them. Our rules don’t allow for any mistakes, while their rules allow for fraud and negligence and a clean slate whenever they need it.

I can’t wait for the first ambitious lawyer who decides to start a class action lawsuit against the fraudulent lenders to recover the lost equity for those people who had to buy homes at inflated prices and are now trapped in their homes and mortgages for the next 10 years as a result of this fraud, greed and gluttony.

Welcome to the United Socialist States of America where the middle class will pay increased taxes for decades to pay for the trillions it will cost to bail out the rich fraudsters. R.I.P. Capitalism, Responsibility & Justice.