Trust in short supply on the Hill

Alfred Biddlecomb
Published: September 30, 2008

Rep. Tom Davis, R-11th District, voted in favor of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package on Monday.

Rep. Thelma Drake, R-Way Down in Tidewater, voted against the bill some are calling the Leave No Banker Behind Act of 2008.

Davis is not seeking reelection next month. Drake is in a fight for her political life. Only one thing scares a congressman more than a failing economy — getting tossed out of office.

The pages of this newspaper could be filled with arguments for or against the Wall Street bailout. The president and House speaker tell us it is needed to firm up Wall Street which is teetering on collapse
due to “toxic” debt based on the floundering mortgage industry. In other words, you and I will foot the bill for all the foreclosures and short sales on my block and across America.

I’m no economist and I slept though most of my math classes in high school. That said, our economy is in a world of hurt. When our leaders tell us we have less than a week to spend $700 billion in order
to avert economic disaster, my head begins to spin.

And while this remedy is probably needed, most of America just isn’t buying it and there are probably 700 billion reasons why.

President Bush deserves some blame. Much like Katrina, the president seemed aloof as more banks and investment firms went under. It was only last week that he addressed the country and handed us
a bill for $700 billion.

Not to be outdone, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earns a good share of the blame as well. She spoke of bipartisanship out one side of her mouth while using the situation to damn Republicans for having
the gall to search for the devil in the details. It makes you wonder how many more times Pelosi can shoot herself in the foot before Democratic leaders start searching for a replacement. I’m sure southern
Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer is on speed dial.

There’s a simple reason this $700 billion bailout didn’t pass the House of Representatives on Monday. No one trusts Congress.

Someone other than President Bush or House Speaker Pelosi needs to be the spokesperson for such a complicated and expensive measure. At least with the Chrysler bailout of the 1970s, Lee Iacocca
could look Americans in the eye and say “trust me.”

There’s no one in Washington or within these faceless Wall Street firms that can make the same plea.

Trust is a lot like credit. Banks of voters normally offer a hefty line of trust to lawmakers, but that line is discontinued when politicians stop making payments on the principle.

That’s why the phones were ringing off the hook last week. Each time a lawmaker’s e-mail box crashed, the “no” column increased by one. There’s a “trust gap” and Congress knows it. Take a look at the
voter roll call from Monday’s vote and try to find a “yes” vote from any member of Congress facing a tough reelection opponent.

Trust is lost when members of Congress are forced to hide pork barrel spending in untraceable “earmarks” in order to finance a bridge to the town of Nowhere, Alaska. And yes, the bridge wasn’t built, but
the funding remained.

Trust is lost whenever Congress and the president demand $700 billion to bailout bankers who profited heavily on mortgages that should never have been awarded in the first place.

Trust is strange.When we have a complicated issue, voters will always side on behalf of their wallet. Who can blame them?

Northern Virginians were offered a $5 billion highway transportation referendum in 2002 that proposed raising the sales tax by a half penny. The beneficiary of that referendum — the Virginia Department of
Transportation — had a bad record of managing high dollar road projects in the decade leading up to the referendum and voters overwhelmingly rejected the plan.

Some credited the defeat to partisan politics and other said it was a victory for smart growth. Actually, it was simpler than that. Voters did not trust VDOT.

Prince William County faced a similar situation a few years earlier when then County Executive Bern Ewert proposed a multi-million bond package to build a parkway along the Potomac River. It was a
smoke and mirrors proposal that drew blank stares from taxpayers when described at meetings. That year, voters approved bonds for schools and other highway projects, but soundly rejected the “Bern
Ewert Parkway.”

There still might be a workable bailout plan that passes Congress this month. But it won’t come easy and may not come in time to rescue our debt-saturated economy. So Congress better go back to
work forming a better plan. Or better yet, find a better pitch man whom the voters trust.

Alfred Biddlecomb is the former Opinion Page editor for the Potomac News and Manassas Journal Messenger.