CUMMINGS FOR CONGRESS

A SEVEN AND ELEVEN ZEROES
700 billion dollars. $700,000,000,000.00. Seven hundred billion dollars. No matter how we write it, it is a very large number. Unless we’re astronomers measuring the distance between planets, this is an amount we probably don’t use every day. Yet, our U.S. Representatives have decided to spend this amount of money to bailout Wall Street and its related excesses.

That’s right, even if we can’t comprehend this much money, we are on the hook for it. You, me, and 350 million neighbors who call this country home, are now the source of these funds. Wall Street couldn’t care less about our health care costs, our education costs, or the personal and financial price that we are paying daily in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when greed outweighs common sense, when increasing credit lines becomes more popular than increasing savings accounts, and when a few billionaires suddenly find themselves on the verge of becoming “only” millionaires, then the call comes out to us for help. My opponent, Tom Cole, has already voted to spend $700,000,000,000 of taxpayer money in order to bail out Wall St. executives and their poor decisions. Tom Cole has been quick to stand up for the wealthy on Wall Street, but where has he been the last six years when hard working Americans have needed him to stand up for us when we haven’t been able to afford health care, when we’ve struggled to put gas in our cars, and when we’ve struggled to keep our jobs and stay in our homes?

For the average-sized family of four, $10,000 of your taxes will go directly from your pocket to theirs. I know some will say we are exaggerating the situation, but everything above is true. Wall Street bit off more than it could chew, and we are being asked to clean up the mess.
Isn’t it funny how these things work? Universal health care is “too expensive”. Fully funding our public schools is “too expensive”. Replacing all of our dangerous roads and bridges is “too expensive”. Yet none of these even approaches the costs of the proposed Wall Street bailout. When services are needed for hard working Americans, the money isn’t there. But when CEOs cry out for help, and the President and the Secretary of the Treasury insist that something be done, Congress “follows the money”. When Wall St. has no money left, Congress asks for ours.

So what’s the right answer? That is the 0.7 trillion-dollar question. But the wrong answer is obvious: We cannot expect our nation’s farmers, auto workers, oil patch hands, teachers and other hard-working Americans to bail out the Wall Street executives that have made millions taking advantage of small changes in the dollar exchange rate on a computer screen. Maybe Congress and Wall Street have what they believe to be sound reasons behind needing the taxpayer’s money. I’m sorry, but we are too busy making ends meet on a daily basis to consider this request as anything but arrogant. Call us again after we find a way to provide health care to our families and still be able to afford to put gasoline in our trucks for work.

It is embarrassing that Congress would bring this to a vote with anything less than majority support in both parties, and it is embarrassing that my opponent actually voted for this bill in spite of the will of his constituents. We know, from Mr. Cole's office poll, that most Oklahomans do not want this bill. The House of Representatives is supposed to be the closest branch to the will of the people. Ultimately, a Congressman must represent the people, not the President, Wall Street, or party leadership. A no vote would have accurately represented the will of the people of his District. If the problem is as serious as the White House suggests, then no bill should be brought to a vote with anything less than strong bipartisan support, and no bill should be supported without the backing of one’s constituents. If government must dole out money, it should dole it out for the good of hard working Americans, not to bail out the bad decisions of Wall Street executives.

Didn’t we learn our lesson with the Iraq War and the Patriot Act? Instead of scaring the people with phrases like “mushroom clouds” and “smoking guns”, President Bush just replaced those words with “the economy coming to a screeching halt” and “ another great depression” and other phrases that invoke fear. How many times can this administration create a crisis and then jam outlandish legislation down our throats because “the world as we know it will end” if we don’t pass their legislation immediately with little or no real scrutiny. President Bush has cried wolf one too many times and now the public knows that this is another sham. Unfortunately, Congress has fallen victim to their scare tactics once again. In the end, what do the common taxpayers really get out of this bailout? Homeowners will still lose their homes, workers will still lose their jobs, and the baby boomers will still lose their retirements. Yet, the scam artists that put our economy in this mess will make out like bandits. This bill is a rush to bad judgment.

Blake Cummings

Blake Cummings for Congress
PO Box 888
Pauls Valley, OK 73075
405-331-0945
blakecummings@suddenlink.net

Others See a Need For Change
Blake recently received endorsements from the Oklahoma Democratic Veterans. Blake said that he is grateful, as well as humbled, by the recent endorsement from the ODV. "Our first priority as Congressmen and women should be to take care or our veterans," Blake said. He continued, "Veterans' benefits do not measure up to the benefits of those in Congress that send our veterans to war. Congress should provide veterans with the same benefits they receive. The needs of our veterans trump the needs of our politicians, period."

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