John Kline has been, for a couple of terms now, the Minnesota Second District rep in Congress.\u00a0 He’s a reliable and solid conservative, and therefore I support him unabashedly and without reservation. While I believe that “endorsing” a candidate would make me sound like a pretentious fop (I’m a blogger, not an institution of any importance at all), I actively encourage anyone who lives in MNCD2 to vote for Kline as many times as you are legally able.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not to say Kline’s perfect – no politician is, and indeed none should ever try to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of his most controversial votes was for the bailout bill.\u00a0 It’s a vote about which I’m of two minds.\u00a0 On the one hand, it does <\/em>continue the national trend of socializing risk and privatizing gain; it will <\/em>take the sting out of making stupid decisions for financial institutions; it is <\/em>(or will be, without immense vigilance on the part of the people and their representatives) a socialization of the credit market.\u00a0 To a free-marketeer, the concept is noxious.<\/p>\n But I also agree with King<\/a>; this is different from previous downturns in that it’s a meltdown in credit, not liquidity; without credit, the dip and the recovery will be much longer, much more difficult, and much more painful.\u00a0 So while I’m as dogmatic a free-marketeer as anyone, I can go along with the notion that government can try to spread a net over the abyss<\/a> – provided that is combined with fanatical vigilance as the recovery gathers to make sure that the nationalization is reversed, and that we don’t repeat the mistakes that led us here.\u00a0 (This will require a huge leap in the economic and financial literacy of the American people, which will in return require a Republican administration).<\/p>\n