NO DEAL...YET

The President, the Congress, candidates McCain and Obama, and members of the government have not reached a deal on a Wall Street bailout at this hour...yet.

House Republicans have reportedly balked at the idea of a 700 billion dollar taxpayer bailout of Washington's mistakes.

And yes, I say Washington's mistakes deliberately.

Washington, particularly the Congress, created this mess with the maze of senseless regulations they have imposed upon free-market capitalism. The major players in this fiasco? Schumer, Reid, Pelosi, Obama, Dodd, and other Democrats who not only support government meddling in free enterprise but kept their hands in the lucrative cookie jar to boot.

Some of these people should be jailed.

The problem, however, is the massive debt the U.S. has amassed, which has been bought up by China and other foreign countries which, at any moment, could call for all the money from a country that's flat broke (that means us).

And that scenario, my friends, could well mean the spread of a Wall Street problem to Main Street and our local banks.

As Senator Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, stated so eloquently, 'The government had no business going into the mortgage business with FannieMae and FreddieMac.'

This was the step that started it all.

Very true, Senator, and now that we know our government did that very thing so that it could push lenders to give money and mortgages to people who could not afford to pay it back, the question becomes, what do we do now?

Our government has created a gigantic mess that has the potential of hurting millions of innocent Americans who have paid their bills on time, paid their taxes, and been model citizens.

Bailing out Wall Street will potentially hurt those citizens through their taxes. But we know without doubt that if Wall Street and our entire financial system fails under the weight of our government's mistakes, those model citizens will be hurt infinitely worse.

What is needed is not more regulation but less and more prudent regulation so that the playing field is level. And businesses should not have to compete with government-chartered entities which immediately have a built-in advantage.

I don't know if 700 billion is needed, but I do think that we are going to have to cough up some dough for Wall Street to keep Main Street from going under...and as a means of taking the first step toward financial solvency, a balanced budget, and reducing the national debt in order to keep America's creditors such as China off of our backs.

Yes, supporting such a measure for me goes against every fiber of my being. But if we as the citizens do not fix the problem the only way we can through the money and the principles of free market capitalism (at least once the problem is fixed), then who will?

Even Reagan supported the Savings and Loan bailout in the 1980s because the economy depended upon it. We may need to do the same now.

Remember, free market capitalism did not create this mess. Government did. And now government must fix the mess it created.