JENNIFER HORN STATEMENT ON HOUSE BAILOUT VOTE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                        CONTACT:           David Chesley

October 3, 2008                                                                                                                                    press@JenniferHorn.org

    (603) 212-9888

Jennifer Horn Statement on House BAILOUT Vote

NASHUA –Jennifer Horn, Republican candidate for Congress, released the following statement following the passage of the economic bailout bill by the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Jennifer Horn: “The Bush/Paulson bill was a bad bill. I applaud Sen. Gregg’s leadership in trying to make a bad bill better.  I agree that we have to do something to ease the credit crunch, but the premise is wrong that the American taxpayer has to pay the bill - they did nothing wrong.

There are things that I like about the bill; removing golden parachutes, authority to suspend mark to market accounting and increasing the levels of FDIC insurance.  But this bill is nothing more than $700B of taxpayer money to try and artificially prop up the economy.   When the government tries to manipulate the free market, it always has unintended consequences – usually costing us money and costing us jobs.  

On the most important issue facing us, this Congress couldn’t even be trusted to pass a bill without pork-barrel giveaways for special interests, including money for wooden arrows designed for use by children, Puerto Rican rum, wool research, and film and television production. This just further illustrates the broken Congress that has failed to act until there is a crisis and has chosen to risk taxpayer money in the hopes that it will go away.

Congress was not debating bailing out Wall Street; they are trying to bail out themselves.

At its core, this is a failure of government – a failure of government oversight, a failure of Representatives to put the voters above the special interests, a failure of leadership.  It is unconscionable that tax payers are now being called upon to pay for the failure of government to the tune of $700 billion.

It was on Paul Hodes’ watch and under his party’s leadership that we got into this mess.  This Congress turned a blind eye to this impending economic crisis for two years.  Paul Hodes and the Financial Services Committee have failed to provide any oversight and protection to the American people and their money, instead taking campaign handouts from the special interests regulated by his committee. 

We should have considered options that protect the integrity of the free market and protect the American taxpayer from more debt.  We need solutions that address the problem so that we don’t find ourselves in this situation again.”