Economy

The following press statement was released by this office on September 29, 2008, regarding the $700 BILLION bailout package proposed to Congress. Congressman Rohrabacher voted NO on this bill, along with a majority of his Republican colleagues and 95 Democrats. An overwhelming number of constituents flooded Congressman Rohrabacher’s offices expressing their vehement opposition to the bailout. Although there may be some who disagree, Congressman Rohrabacher stands by his “NO” vote and believes that decision was the best way to safeguard the taxpayers from a massive government spending bill being rushed through Congress without proper debate or examination.

“Today’s vote reaffirms the independence of Congress and makes it clear that we will not be stampeded into spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in a precipitous manner. This legislation would have directed $700 billion of the people’s money to bailout rich and powerful interests who acted irresponsibly. It would have been a classic example of taking from those who’ve been responsible and giving it to those who have not.

“We were told without this effort our country would suffer a financial calamity of historic proportion. However, Congress has spoken and today’s defeat of the bill is a rebuke of such scare tactics. These tactics made many of us even more skeptical of being rushed to act, especially when we are being asked to allocate hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

“There were no reforms included in the bill that would have addressed the initial root causes of this financial mess, so there is no reason to believe if we passed the bill that we would not find ourselves in a similar crisis and on the edge of a similar economic abyss over and over again. The elites in the financial industry wanted us to give them a blank check. Well, that’s not responsible and it doesn’t take a financial genius to predict the resulting special interests feeding frenzy. Whether this feeding would ever avert an economic debacle is yet to be seen.

“Effective reform takes time, commitment and cooperation which were obviously not a part of this speeded up, hysteria driven proposal. I remain willing to work with all of my colleagues in the House to fix our broken financial system. In the end, this bailout proposal was socialism for the rich or better, socialism without a human face. It deserved to be defeated.”