Dear Comrades: Let's Do Nothing

None of us can understand all the mysteries of capitalism. Nor can we fully comprehend the intricacies of our market crisis.

And by "we," I especially mean Nancy Pelosi.

Many Democrats supported the massive "buy-in" — the preferred euphemism for the socialistic "bailout" — because it would mean a more centralized economy. But, dear comrades, why are so many so-called conservatives willing to relinquish principles for a short-term fix?

Are there really only two choices: depression or nationalization? Can we afford this bailout without spending cuts? Should we rescue financial institutions without the help of the private sector? Why the rush to war?

Elected officials could have explored those questions rather than scattering for political cover. Conceivably, there is more to governance than the path of least resistance. There must be more to a debate than fear and/or loathing.

Loathing is when Pelosi, the least effective House speaker in recent history, unleashes partisan tirades that peddle the tired myth that "unbridled" free markets (tell it to the more than 75,000 pages of regulations in the Federal Register) are the sole reason for our predicament.

Even she must understand that government meddling is, in part, at fault for this mess, from the Carter administration's Community Reinvestment Act to the Clinton administration's repeal of Glass-Steagall to George W. Bush's Ownership Society, government implicitly has guaranteed loans, while at the same time, it has compelled lenders to hand out risky mortgages to low-income borrowers.

When the Bush administration tepidly recommended an overhaul of the housing finance industry in 2003, Democrats balked. So it is with amazement that we watched the very same folks — people such as Rep. Barney Frank (who did not see any "possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury" only a few years ago) and Sen.

It's true that many Americans — who, at a 2-1 clip, oppose the bailout — do not understand that most of the $700 billion likely would be repaid. Then again, maybe they've heard government make promises before.

Perhaps they are no longer susceptible to end-of-days rhetoric. And when the media accost them with horror stories about the Dow's largest one-day drop in history, maybe they understand the drop was, I don't know, only the 17th-largest percentage drop in history. Who knows; a new day may even rise.

Maybe they instinctively cringe when both presidential candidates, all congressional leaders, Wall Street and the Bush administration agree on something. Too much amiability in Washington is never a good thing.

Upstart Republicans who stood against the bailout (with one-third of Democrats) were attacked by their brethren for failing to act like "grown-ups" and allowing principles to get in the way of "doing the right thing" — one of the most ludicrous clichés ever foisted on humankind.

The rationalization goes like this: Government helped caused this mess, so government needs to fix it.

Maybe. But as Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economics professor, recently wrote: "The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place, not attempt to fix bad government with more government."

We're in a fix. There will be consequences. But every now and then, the solution to a crisis is to do nothing. Most of our worst ideas are reactions to emergencies — some imagined and some real.

Especially when what we're doing is an assault on all those pesky principles we're supposed to be protecting in the first place.

David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Denver Post and the author of "Nanny State." Visit his Web site at www.DavidHarsanyi.com. To find out more about David Harsanyi and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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