It Doesn't Make Sense to Go Down With the Ship if You're Going to Take Everybody With You

A few conservative Republicans are coming out in opposition to the bailout bill. Here's the letter from Rep. Mike Pence:

Dear Colleagues,

Our nation has been confronted by a serious crisis in our financial markets. The President and this Congress were right to act with all deliberate speed in addressing this crisis.

We now have a deal that promises to bring near term stability to our financial turmoil, but at what price?

Economic freedom means the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail.

The decision to give the federal government the ability to nationalize almost every bad mortgage in America interrupts this basic truth of our free market economy.

Republicans improved this bill but it remains the largest corporate bailout in American history, forever changes the relationship between government and the financial sector, and passes the cost along to the American people. I cannot support it.

Before you vote, ask yourself why you came here and vote with courage and integrity to those principals.

If you came here because you believe in limited government and the freedom of the American marketplace, vote in accordance with those convictions.

Duty is ours, outcomes belong to God.

We have fought the good fight. Now we need to finish the race and make sure that posterity and the American people know there were conservatives who opposed the leviathan state in this dark hour.

And if you do this I promise you, I will stand with you and, I believe with all my heart, the American people will stand with you as well.

Mike Pence

Mike's a sharp guy and I have a lot of respect for him, but unfortunately now is not the time for heroics. That time passed when the Congress refused to act to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003 and 2005 when they had the chance. There are various groups demanding to stop the bailout, but I don't think they'd like what the American economy would look like if they succeeded.

Wall Street and the world markets are on pins and needles right now waiting to see if the American leadership will act to inject confidence back into the market. Had there not been an agreement in principle reached today, I think a historic stock market plunge on Monday would have been likely. The market may still react poorly - who knows at this point, but at least the bailout gives everybody a chance to take a deep breath and hold their fire for a moment.

I don't like the idea of rewarding financial institutions for making bad loans, and I also don't like the idea of rewarding homeowners for buying houses with loans they couldn't afford, but again, the time to fix all that has passed. We are so deep into this thing now that to sit back and say "let's let the market work it all out" would guarantee a market plunge and runs on just about every bank in the country. Bank failures would multiply and the FDIC would quickly run out of working capital. Credit markets would come screeching to a halt and businesses would be unable to keep going if they relied on lines of credit to operate. You wouldn't even be able to buy a used car without a pristine credit score.

Even Newt Gingrich, a conservative through and through, has said he would probably have to reluctantly support the bill just because of the perilous situation the economy is in right now.

I'm all for making principled stands, but that should have been done when there was still time to fix this. Now is the time to act, and act quickly to prevent economic disaster. It looks like the GOP has done a pretty good job of stripping the nonsense out of the final bill. Let's get it done and get back to business.