Mark Levin writing in National Review Online’s Conner Blog:<\/p>\n
I have read the posts here and elsewhere. Sometimes these things are made to look more complicated than they really are.\u00a0From an economic perspective, if the problem is liquidity and credit, there simply is no need for the federal government to assume massive amounts of debt on its book by assuming loans in anticipation that their holders or borrowers will default. This seems to me like a brand new expanse of government power that is not justified (if it ever is) by the arguments made on its behalf.\u00a0The government controls monetary policy through supply and interest rates, among other things. It can further ease money supply and credit, thereby increasing the flow of capital.\u00a0The government controls tax policy.\u00a0It can increase liquidity and the flow of new money into the economy both from within\u00a0the country and from foreign sources by eliminating the corporate income tax and the capital\u00a0gains tax\u00a0even on a mid-term basis.\u00a0No matter what is done, some financial institutions will fail,\u00a0as they did in the 1981-82 recession and have since.\u00a0And the Fed and Treasury and other instrumentalities of government will have to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether to intervene and how to intervene.\u00a0They will also have to determine whether other policies require modifying, such as the McCain proposal today, in which he suggests increasing federal insurance for individual depositors from $100,000 to $250,000.\u00a0Other smart suggestions include modifying the mark-to-market rule requiring financial institutions to downgrade the valuation of assets. If the goal is to prevent panic in the economy by investors and depositors, then increase credit, liquidity, and the flow of capital, and deal with problem institutions that are significant enough in size that their demise could resonate to the wider economy.\u00a0But\u00a0the Soviet-style, top-down five year plan a la Paulson’s proposal, and to a significant extent the proposal that was voted down yesterday,\u00a0could easily do more damage to both the economy and our governmental structure.\u00a0So, in this respect, I must depart from NRO’s<\/em> editorial. Read the rest…<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
My personal view is that a bailout of some kind has become a necessary evil… What I am opposed to is the “Paulson Plan”. There a number of things that can be done short of the Treasury using taxpayer dollars buying up billions in bad paper. As Levin points out we can quickly add liquidity to the market by suspending the corporate income tax and capital gains taxes and for example institute a government backed premium based mortgage insurance program. There are no perfect solutions to this problem and regardless of what actions Congress ultimately takes some financial institution are still going to fail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mark Levin writing in National Review Online’s Conner Blog: I have read the posts here and elsewhere. Sometimes these things are made to look more complicated than they really are.\u00a0From an economic perspective, if the problem is liquidity and credit, there simply is no need for the federal government to assume massive amounts of debt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,7],"tags":[174,181,180],"class_list":{"0":"post-553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-bailout-plan","9":"tag-house-republicans","10":"tag-mark-levin","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfpI7-8V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2271,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/29\/righto-sphere-poll\/","url_meta":{"origin":553,"position":0},"title":"Righto-sphere Poll","author":"Jeff","date":"May 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Cassandra posted these questions from John Hawkins survey of rightwing bloggers at Villainous Company earlier and though I'd add my two cents. 1) Do you think the GOP will gain or lose seats in the House in 2010? 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Darrell\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Culture of Corruption"","block_context":{"text":"Culture of Corruption","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/culture-of-corruption\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2105,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/01\/mortgage-cramdown-bill-dies-in-senate\/","url_meta":{"origin":553,"position":5},"title":"Mortgage Cramdown Bill Dies in Senate","author":"Jeff","date":"May 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Barack Obama's economic policy suffered a setback yesterday when a bill that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to force lenders to adjust the principal on mortgages failed in the Senate. The bill received 45 votes, 6 short of the 51 needed for passage... 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