The Market Is Speaking

To the Editor:

As a fairly new Newtownian, I would like to correct some of the misinformation I hear consistently in this town and put some facts out there.

Myth #1. Bush did not regulate the financial markets. Has anyone heard of Sarbanes-Oxley? It was one of the most onerous regulatory regimes put in place after Enron — New York was screaming for it to be repealed because they were losing business to London — Bush enacted it. Bush attempted to reign in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae but was defeated by Congress several times; they were intent on pushing “Community Lending,” which is a euphemism for lending people money who can’t afford it; i.e., subprime lending. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and others who are screaming now about banks making bad decisions were behind this. There is an argument to be made that government interference prevented banks from making sound loans.

Myth #2. Spending money you don’t have during a recession will make the economy recover. There is no data to back this up; in fact, historically the opposite is true — you just run up piles of debt and create inflation. Does anyone remember Jimmy Carter? The misery index?

Myth #3. Raising income taxes and giving away money to people who don’t pay taxes, repealing the deduction for home mortgage interest for the higher income brackets (in a real estate crisis), raising taxes on banks (in a banking crisis), raising taxes on energy companies, and attempting to assert government control over health care will help the economy during a recession. Are you kidding me? The stock market has gone down 20 percent in a short few weeks since Obama’s budget proposal. Why? Because the profits (and therefore jobs and income) of the US economy just went down the you-know-what if this socialist, irresponsible budget is enacted. He wants to do the same thing that deepened the Great Depression.

We have to stop this from happening people. I value my children’s opportunities and future too much for that.

Please, let’s not throw names but have a serious debate here because the very survival of this country is at stake.

Oh and by the way — using the power of the White House to attack the free press is not an American tradition. That’s what Chavez does in Venezuela. And a small guy with a mustache in Austria started that way as well.

Todd Wood

5 Tory Lane, Newtown     March 6, 2009