So the politicians who have led our nation to economic ruin are going to put a plan together to save us which entails more of what they have done all along -- subsidize bad economic behaviors. Two of the key enablers who insulated the failing Fannie & Freddie that subsequently messed up the mortgage markets -- Chris * Dodd and Barney* Frank -- fancy themselves as wise market consultants. They are responsible for impeding the Bush administration efforts to remedy the reckless reserve and lending policies of Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac. Where are the congressional tribunals compelling Frank & Dodd to testify about their roles in this debacle?

And while the Bush administration gets credit for trying to fix Fannie & Freddie a few years ago despite the other party's impedance, they too have contributed to our economic downfall. We remember the reckless spending and entitlement policies such as the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, the housing of Katrina "refugees" for months after the storm using hotel rooms in fully functioning job markets plus allowing illegal aliens to infiltrate and take advantage of government health and welfare programs. Nearing the end of his term, Bush and his cohorts herded bank CEOs into a conference and demanded that they take government bailout money as a stipend with some executive pay conditions. Do we want officeholders of such incompetence imposing corporate welfare and control?

Well now after Bush nearly doubled the national debt, had the largest growth in the federal government since F.D.R. and borrowed more than any previous president, Obama wins an election on change from Bush policy. Obama can easily deflect some criticism of his economic policies by pointing to Bush's vast lack of accounting discipline which appears to give Obama an air of credibility. But wait, Obama is just more of the same in particular regard to a stimulus package filled with pork for government bureaucrats and spending programs to ensure support from various Democrat factions. Obama supporters complain about Bush indebtedness while Obama takes a similar course promising more spending packages with future "trillion-dollar deficits for years to come ". Yes, Bush really spent like an L.B.J. Democrat but now that the Democrats are back in power, they aren't going to be outdone by the 'opposition' party concerning the tenets of big government & big spending. So Obama is promising to out due Bush, while the Obama sheep (O-baahahahaha-ma) praise him as a more efficient & fiscally responsible president.

Meanwhile the banks, automakers, mortgage lenders, UAW, Fannie & Freddie have all become beneficiaries of the government's subsidized bubble over the years and are labeled as being too big to fail. The media and politicians blame economic woes on the failure of the free markets and lack of government regulation. Now does any of what has been going on sound like a truly free market considering all the subsidization, accommodating monetary policies, protectionism, coercive taxation, entitlements, bailouts and stimulus packages? No. So it's really the government and all its interference in the markets in so many ways through overregulation, misregulation and absence of limits and oversight on government itself that causes the economy to malfunction.

It is big government with unyielding power that creates the incentive for lobbyists of undue special interests to profligate interference in the economy for their own benefit and it is they who support and perpetuate the campaigns of politicians who will work in their favor. But wait, power-hungry politicians in big government will seek to make deals and legislate on behalf of or threaten to legislate against certain industries or corporations in order to obtain campaign support from particular pools of lobbyists. A truly free market with limited government protects against both scenarios because politicians lack the power to interfere or manipulate in the marketplace and therefore lobbyists do not have great incentive to petition such a properly checked and limited legislature in order to obtain inappropriate favors.

This truly free market within a system of adequate government with proper powers is much less prone to suffering corporate (or general) favoritism, protectionism or predation on behalf of swarms of lobbying locusts. Instead, such a market allows the consumer to determine the winners and losers by allowing the people to vote with their dollars for the companies that provide the best prices or highest quality per dollar. Big business will have to focus on satisfying the consumer instead of relying on protectionism or subsidization to survive against lower-priced competitors. Within such a system it is easier to spot corruption or violation of safety laws since the government is more impartial without the seas of lobbyists and it is less bogged down by having to concern itself with providing advantages, goodies or protectionisms to various industries (or factions).

Shouldn't all of you as consumers keep check on the corporations instead of the lobbyists and politicians? Similar can be said for a vastly simplified tax code that does not create battles for loop holes. Can you imagine as well if the courts were free of ravenous, sue-crazy, ambulance-chasing lawyers?

While we are at it, vilification of big business becomes less applicable since a truly free market encourages more competition amongst more companies which will cater to potentially smaller market shares and yields greater attention towards the consumer. And why does the current climate vilify corporations but not small businesses in general? Is there not corruption in small business as well? You have heard all those stories concerning fraudulent, small-time mechanics haven't you? Doesn't small business account for something like 80% of America's economy? Maybe the effort to vilify just big business is the socialists' ploy to hide their overall true intentions. They employ a psychology by creating distrust to big business -- easier since big business appears to be more of a threat. Its names are fewer in number but provides a channel to quicker control of a noticeable portion of the economy . However, you can be sure they will do to much of small business what they claim they will do to big business in order to rein (reign?) everyone in. They are counting on the envy or fear of big business in order to subjugate all businesses in the end.

The Commonwealth would not tolerate such things. We will provide a truly free market where the people themselves determine who will provide more goods & services at more affordable prices amongst everyone while offering better employment opportunities and wages. We will allow your current gross pay to provide you with the living wage you seek. Just look at the gross amount on your paystub. This is what you would get under the Commonwealth since we would rid you of the income tax and instead have the FairTax.

This living wage FairTax system is hidden from you by the politicians who are throwing the TARP over it. Their TARP is woefully inferior as an economic stimulus and it will cost you more in the future. It makes you pay to bail out banks, mortgage lenders and such that actually contribute noticeable sums of campaign money to the members of the congressional House Financial Services Committee that recently held a hearing on the TARP recipients. And some of those committee members invest in some of those companies.

Similar argument can also be made against the the latest stimulus plan. While pushed as immediate relief, it won't even spend much of the money until a few years down the road and even then it goes to dodgy pork projects. Why not instead bail yourselves out with the FairTax? It just doesn't make sense for the politicians to take money from you, red-tape it and push it through all kinds of inefficiencies and then promise to save you from ruin by bailing out all their undue interests.

Ponder how they have taken hundreds of dollars out of your paycheck all these years while promising to provide you with retirement, health care and good education. Well, where did all that money go? A lot of it has been wasted while leaving a bankrupt Social Security scheme, worsening schools and more expensive health care & insurance. Health care and insurance cost increases were brought about by the government's mandates on policies, establishment of rationed HMOs, wasteful and bureaucratic Medicaid & Medicare programs and now the Prescription Drug Plan boondoggle. Think of all that money wasted and they still haven't provided you with anything but empty promises election after election.

Accounting for stuff like that, a general way to save our whole economic system would be an Economic Reconfiguration Plan (ERP) which includes the FairTax. See if you don't think that this would be a much better method to reverse our broad economic problems by saving your personal finances, the money supply and auditing the government while keeping it in check.

In closing, we advocate Austrian economics. As an aftermarket indicator, we would utilize thermoeconomic-inspired econometrics in order to interpret and gauge the economic engine which enables America to KOT (Keep On Trucking).