We?ve heard plenty about the economic disaster that would result from the government digging the mortgage industry out of the rubble ? not to mention the hit that liberty would take ? but what about the moral implications of the bailout?
Robert Stacy McCain, writing in today?s American Spectator, has good insights on that. He explains that the Eighth Commandment ? ?You shall not steal? ? puts a stake in the heart of any Christian argument in favor of the bailout. How is it moral to take $700 billion from taxpayers at gunpoint and redistribute it to lenders that dug their own grave?
From the column:
The president has told us that ?the government’s top economic experts? believe the bailout is necessary to avert an economic collapse. The plan is supported by leaders of both parties in Congress, and endorsed by both John McCain and Barack Obama. One eminent pundit has denounced bailout opponents as ?nihilists.?
Yet I cannot escape the conclusion that the bailout is wrong. Not just wrong as a matter of politics or policy, but wrong as a matter of morality. And I suspect that the same moral instinct fuels the fervor of many citizens who have been burning up the Capitol Hill switchboard with calls demanding that lawmakers vote against this bill.
Ordinary Americans cannot ignore the ?still small voice? telling them that what is being proposed is nothing less than government-sponsored grand theft, and that in a government ?of the people, by the people, for the people,? this crime is to be carried out in their name.
