Notes and Summary of the Broadcast -- The Home Mortgage
Mess
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning.
This week, I met with Housing
Secretary Jackson and Treasury Secretary Paulson to discuss the economy
and the turbulence in our Nation's mortgage industry. The fundamentals
of America's economy remain strong. But the mortgage industry is going
through a period of adjustment. And some Americans are worried about the
impact this is having on their ability to make their monthly mortgage
payments.
I have made it a priority to help
American homeowners navigate these financial challenges, so that as many
families as possible can stay in their homes. The Federal government
will not bail out lenders -- because that would only make a recurrence
of the problem more likely. And it is not the government's job to bail
out speculators, or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew
they could never afford. But I support action at the Federal level that
will help more American families keep their homes.
A Christian/Libertarian Response:
1. "Do as I say, not as I do." -- Government is a
Fraud
The idea of the federal government -- mortgaged to the hilt --
rescuing mortgaged homeowners is ludicrous.
When a homebuyer takes out a mortgage, he enters into a
legally-binding promise to pay money he does not yet have, but hopes to
earn. The Federal Government is "bankrupt" according to
economists in the Federal Reserve System. A newly
published paper by an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis warns that a ballooning budget deficit and pension-welfare
timebomb has created a $65.9 trillion
fiscal gap that will force
the United States into bankruptcy.
Politicians have promised voters
nearly $70 TRILLION
in government benefits
which the government cannot pay for.
This is fraudulent and unethical behavior.
It is like a homebuyer signing a mortgage promising to pay a million
dollars in principal and interest knowing that he will lose his job at
noon and never work again. The government knows it does not have the
income to keep the promises it makes.
And this is the government that's going to solve the home-lending
crisis? This is our moral leader?
2. The Moral Foundation -- "The
Laws of Nature and of Nature's God"
- Thou shalt not steal
- The
Eighth Commandment: A Politician's Moral Inventory
-
- False
Weights and Measures
- In an introduction to his notes on the Constitutional Convention's
deliberations in Philadelphia, James Madison, the "Father of
the Constitution," noted that one of the defects the Convention
was assembled to remedy was that
In the internal administration of the States, a violation of
contracts had become familiar, in the form of depreciated paper
made a legal tender.
Accordingly, the U.S. Constitution prohibits paper money, or the
emitting of "bills
of credit." (Art. 1, § 10, ¶ 1) That provision reads:
"No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or
confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money;
emit bills of credit; make
any thing but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts;
pass any bill of attainder, ex-post-facto law, or law impairing
the obligation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility."
...
In Federalist Paper No. 44, possibly the most
authoritative source for constitutional interpretation, Madison
explained the provision:
The extension of the prohibition to bills of credit must give
pleasure to every citizen, in proportion to his love of justice
and his knowledge of the true springs of public prosperity. The
loss which America has sustained since the peace, from the
pestilent effects of paper money on the necessary confidence
between man and man, on the necessary confidence in the public
councils, on the industry and morals of the people, and on the
character of republican government, constitutes an enormous debt
against the States chargeable with this unadvised measure, which
must long remain unsatisfied; or rather an accumulation of guilt,
which can be expiated no otherwise than by a voluntary sacrifice
on the altar of justice, of the power which has been the
instrument of it. ... No one of these mischiefs is less incident
to a power in the States to emit paper money, than to coin gold or
silver. The power to make any thing but gold and silver a tender
in payment of debts, is withdrawn from the States, on the same
principle with that of issuing a paper currency.
A paper money economy is designed to foster a consumption
mentality. No one saves for the future if they know the money will
be worth less. People are inclined to go into debt, rather than to
work, to get the things they want NOW, rather than defer
gratification for some future-oriented purpose. Thus, corporations
are able to capitalize quickly, without providing goods or services
which are valued by people of good character, and they can depend on
debtor-consumers to buy their goods with newly-printed money. Paper
money is the antithesis of everything the Hebrew-Christian religion
stands for.
But can we legitimately apply Biblical laws against "unjust
balances" and "divers weights" to our money today?
Excuse me for being a fundamentalist, but I say Yes.
See: Banking
and Money
Monetary
Policy
The
borrower is the slave of the lender. (Proverbs 22:7)
- 3. Policy Recommendations
- Abolish the Federal Reserve System
- "Easy Credit" encourages debt, debases the currency
- Abolish the IRS
- Mortgage deductions encourage debt
- Abolish Costly Unconstitutional Federal
Programs and Agencies which force families into debt
- Abolish Restrictions on Affordable Housing
4. "The American Dream"
- The Founders' Perspective: "Vine
& Fig Tree"
- Family Continuity over the Generations: Parents help children,
children help the elderly.
- The Myth of the $100,000 college education
- Service and Production rather than Self-Aggrandizement and
Manipulation
- Too many people make money servicing debt rather than
producing things of value.
Additional Resources:
The Democrat Party Radio Address:
Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky on President Bush's failed War
in Iraq.
Libertarian Response to Democrats:
See the links on last
week's Ozarks Virtual Town Hall
Click here
for a replay of this edition of the Ozarks Virtual
Town Hall