Response from Representative Gingrey

Thank you for contacting me regarding your opposition to H.R. 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. As your Congressman, I appreciate hearing your thoughts and welcome every opportunity to be of service.

As you may be aware, Congress first began consideration of the proposal offered by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson the week of September 22. The House of Representatives defeated a modified version of the proposal on September 29 by a vote of 228 to 205, while the Senate passed its version of the proposal on October 1 by a vote of 74 to 25. On Friday, October 3, the House of Representatives agreed to the Senate version of the bill by a vote of 263 to 171, and the President signed it into law shortly thereafter.

While I do believe that we need to ensure the economic security of our nation and its people, I voted against both the initial House version and the later Senate version which ultimately was enacted. I do not believe they were the right approaches to address this crisis, and I could not support a bill that aimed to save our free-market economy by sacrificing the very free-market principles that sustain it.

Without question, our country is facing very difficult economic challenges. Though inaction was not an option, I firmly believe that in this instance, Congress had an obligation to not only act quickly, but also correctly. I believed that Congress could have created a premium-based insurance program for mortgage-backed securities where the businesses participating-and not the taxpayer-would pay the premiums. I also support suspending the capital gains tax for two years to spur economic growth and investment here in America.

Additionally, I was very troubled that this legislation did more to treat the symptoms rather than cure the underlying disease that caused this economic crisis. While there is a lot of blame to go around, there is no question that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are in desperate need of reform and should be transitioned back into private sector organizations. Congress must address the root problem of this crisis to ensure that it never happens again; the legislation twice presented to the House failed to do this.