As I read about the latest industry to beg DC policymakers to give them taxpayer money to “bail” them out, I am reminded of the words of the late Senator Paul Tsongas: “We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.”
In the flurry of fear accompanying every industry’s prediction of imminent demise, we seem to have lost that sense of sacredness. Although I understand that in the very short term we need to invest and table deficit reduction as a top priority, I am very concerned that the taxpayer will lose massive amounts of money on the [insert massive number north of $1 trillion here] “bailout” and we’ll still be talking about short-term stimulus packages in 2012 and 2016.
Let’s hope that there are people left in positions of power who care about our children’s future and are incensed that our children will pay for the greed of today. In the race to save all who did well when times were good and now want taxpayers to cover their downside risk, perhaps policymakers can stop once in a while and say “no.” Our children will be happy we did.
