This is what principle looks like

From Congressman Mike Pence (Human Events):

Dear Colleagues:

Our nation has been confronted by a serious crisis in our financial markets. The President and this Congress were right to act with all deliberate speed in addressing this crisis.

We now have a deal that promises to bring near-term stability to our financial turmoil, but at what price?

Economic freedom means the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail.

The decision to give the federal government the ability to nationalize almost every bad mortgage in America interrupts this basic truth of our free market economy.

Republicans improved this bill but it remains the largest corporate bailout in American history, forever changes the relationship between government and the financial sector, and passes the cost along to the American people. I cannot support it.

Before you vote, ask yourself why you came here and vote with courage and integrity to those principles.

If you came here because you believe in limited government and the freedom of the American marketplace, vote in accordance with those convictions.

Duty is ours, outcomes belong to God.

We have fought the good fight. Now we need to finish the race and make sure that posterity and the American people know there were conservatives who opposed the leviathan state in this dark hour.

And if you do this I promise you, I will stand with you and, I believe with all my heart, the American people will stand with you as well.

MIKE PENCE

This comes from the Republican Liberty Caucus (f/d: yours truly is Chairman of the Virginia Chapter):

September 29, 2008
For Immediate Release
Contact: William Westmiller, (805) 493-4332

“NO Bailout for Failure, NO Rescue from Risk,” says Republican Group

Thousand Oaks, CA — A national caucus of Republican activists has urged GOP legislators to stand firm against the “Paulson Bailout” of a corrupt financial regulatory system. “This proposal is a government takeover of the entire U.S. economy,” says Republican Liberty Caucus Chairman William Westmiller, “whose only purpose is to rescue those who made risky bets on bad mortgages.”

The Caucus [www.RLC.org] opposes any taxpayer payoff to rescue those who made bad investments in any sector of the economy. “The problem is not a lack of government control,” says Westmiller, “but rather the decades of market distortions imposed by Congress through subsidies, mandates, guarantees, and constraints on free-enterprise mortgage offerings.”

The Paulson proposal grants the Secretary of the Treasury total control over all mortgage-related financial instruments, nearly a trillion-dollars in discretionary funds, and the power to nationalize or deputize every financial institution in the nation. “This isn’t a rescue plan,” says Westmiller, “it is an economic police state.”

Over the past five years, Congress has refused — on multiple occasions — to impose standard accounting practices on “Government Sponsored Enterprises”, maintained an implicit taxpayer guarantee against all of their losses, and expanded the discretion of federal agencies to allocate new national debt to failed investments and insurance brokers. “This is not free enterprise, nor anything even remotely associated with the American Dream,” says Westmiller, “it is pure and simply corporatism, designed by oligarchs, suitable for a Weimar Republic or Soviet Union, not the United States of America.”

The RLC favors clear legislation protecting individuals against fraud, misrepresentation, and theft. It opposes any law that benefits one class of Americans at the expense of another, including any form of financial guarantee or subsidy that rewards failure or encourages foolish investments.

“The worst aspect of all the proposals now pending in Congress,” says Westmiller, “is the destructive craving to save a system of patronage, political favors, and class benefits that has brought us the current crisis. More of the same is no solution.”

“The ‘Pelosi Compromise’ is a fruitless exercise of battling against the most extreme Democratic proposals,” says Westmiller, “adding new layers of bureaucracy, prolonged studies of alernative interventions, and phased-in destruction of the dollar is not progress, it is more, much more, of the same failed policies.”

The RLC applauds the stamina and fortitude of multiple Republican Senators and Congressmen who have opposed any corporate bailout, expansions of government fiscal power, new burdens on taxpayers, or any further assaults on the value of the dollar through inflation.

The Republican Liberty Caucus is a political membership organization working within the Republican Party in support of individual rights, limited government, and free enterprise. The Caucus has members in all 50 states and 20 chartered state chapters. The RLC has urged all of its members to communicate to their representatives in Congress their total opposition to any bailout.

The voting begins tomorrow.  Do you’re best to convince your member of Congress to stand with Mr. Pence.  Mine is already a lost cause.