This week in Washington I spent much of my time, in committee and on the House floor, battling the federal government takeover of our financial industry.  While I have worked hard for reforms that will lead to smarter regulation of our financial sector, far from reform, the Democrats' Wall Street bailout bill embodies everything that is wrong with Washington in the Obama-Pelosi-Reid era. Instead of adopting common-sense reforms to protect taxpayers and ensure fairness, this 2,000-page bill enshrines us as a bailout nation through its permanent TARP-like bailout mechanism for big financial institutions.

This mechanism replaces the orderly process of bankruptcy for failed institutions and lets government bureaucrats arbitrarily pick winners and losers among creditors. By elevating special interests over the rule of law, this bill represents crony capitalism at its worst.

The bill also has the wrong focus, attacking gift cards and payday lenders while refusing to consider any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two failed mortgage giants have already cost the American people $147 billion, yet Democrats disappointingly claim they are "too complicated" to address here.

Additionally, at a time when unemployment is hovering near 10%, this bill does nothing to create the jobs our economy desperately needs. Instead, it makes credit — especially small-business credit — less available and more expensive by creating a new federal loan czar with the power to ban and ration consumer credit products.

Overall, Democrats have claimed their bailout bill won't cost taxpayers anything. Of course, that's what they said about the bailout of Fannie and Freddie, which are losing an average of $7 billion each month.

Even if they aren't directly charged for these bailouts, taxpayers will ultimately end up paying for them in the form of higher fees and restricted access to credit. That impact will be devastating, especially on small businesses. As one small-business owner from Combine lamented, "Without easy reliable access to that credit, I am out of business."

The answer to criminal greed on Wall Street is not more taxpayer bailouts, it is bankruptcy and more vigorous enforcement of our existing fraud and consumer protection laws. The fundamental truth is that the best way to prevent future taxpayer bailouts is to end taxpayer bailouts. Republicans proposed, and Democrats rejected, these and other reforms that would have ended "too big to fail" once and for all.

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