Washington, D.C. – Alaskan Congressman Don Young voted today against H.R. 1424 - Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, a $700 billion Wall Street bailout, the largest bailout in American history.

"I understand that we have a grave economic problem right now," said Rep. Young. "But I am concerned that this bill is nothing more than a slippery slope to socialism. Once the government starts acquiring private institutions, where is the line in the sand? It gets pushed further and further. This bill unfortunately reminds me of the Patriot Act; we quickly react in the case of a crisis instead of being proactive, and then pass sweeping legislation we regret later. We are pushing an agenda where profits are privatized but losses are socialized at the expense of taxpayer dollars. A bailout of Wall Street should be the last resort, not the first.

"People have mistakenly assumed I would vote to spend hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars because of the new provisions added by the Senate. This bill was supposed to be about the economy and trying to make sure there is liquidity in the market. But instead this bill has been loaded with additional items that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid think they can bribe Members with. With all of the tax breaks the bill is really up to $850 billion now and it's not even guaranteed to work.

"By passing this bill, we give one man an incredible amount of power. Since the beginning of our nation, we have never given any one person as much power as this Congress is about to give Secretary Paulson and in doing so, we are single-handedly weakening the powers of Congress. It goes against the principles of democracy this country was founded on! We are handing one unelected official hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars for him to use at his own discretion; that’s not right and I can’t support that.

"Again, I fully understand that we have a serious issue on our hands, but I can’t agree with the way we are handling it. I have heard from thousands of Alaskans over the past two weeks, via email and phone calls. From what I’ve seen, the vast majority of them are opposed to this bailout and I agree with them. Alaskans are paying the highest gas prices in the country and out in the bush a gallon of milk can cost $9. Congress is willing to bail out multi-billion dollar industries but won’t address the needs of every day Americans and Alaskans. I think that’s shameful. We don’t need legislation that provides a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card we need legislation that provides a long-term fix."

This bill passed by a vote of 263-171.