the 700B$ bailout is a good/bad idea.

To my esteemed opponent. I would first like to apologize for missing the last round. My debate season is starting up, and as captain I have been hurriedly running around organizing and other duties that I would prefer I didn't have. I do not intend to miss another, but we will see. Now for the argumentation. The reasons the 700 billion dollar bailout is a bad idea are as follows. 1: It will not save the economy 2: Consumer confidence can't rebound 3: It will set a dangerous precedent I will first begin by explaining what is currently happening regarding the bailout. Democrats and republicans alike have come to an agreement regarding what needs to be done for the economy. They have agreed that something needs to be done, but couldn't agree on what needed to be done. They reached an agreement that said they would bail out these companies over different stages depending on what needed to be done. The house voted...and it didn't pass. This means that these companies are not going to recieve the need they need. Now for my first point. This bailout will not save the economy. The way capitalism works is like this. Consumers have jobs and earn money. They spend that money in the free market. The money spent goes to paying workers salaries, and making the company richer. When the company gets richer, they expand. When the company expands, they need more people working. More people are hired, so more people are earning money, and more people are spending money. Our economy is reliant upon spending money. The bailout will call for every taxpayer to pay 7,000$ of taxes. This is 7000$ that the taxpayer can't spend. This means that while these companies who made a bad decision are still in business, they don't have anyone to do business with. So when people don't spend money, companies don't get richer, they don't expand, they decrease, people get fired, which means more people don't have money to spend. This is exactly what will happen with the bailout. The House of Representatives realized this, and voted against it. So the economy cannot be saved by this. My second argument is similar. Consumer confidence is necessary to a stable economy. If I believe that our economy is good, then I will spend money. If I don't, then I save money for harder times. Consumer confidence is LOW!!!!! Extremely Low!!!!! The bailout will do nothing but hurt that. As a taxpayer, if the government takes an extra 7000$ from me, then I start to save money. If I get less money, then I save more money. It's funny how that works, but it is the mindset we have as Americans. So consumer confidence will be even lower than it already is after the bailout. This too will hurt the economy. My third and final argument is that it will set a dangerous precedent. We as Americans have prided ourselves on our freedoms. We have fought for them in the Revolutionary War, we fought against counter-ideals in the World Wars and the Cold War, and we are fighting for other's rights in Iraq...supposedly. The government that our fathers set up was that of a limited government. One that had no role in private or public business. This means that as soon as the government steps into and claims a territory that are not theirs, they will continue to do this. This has happened when the President claims sending troops isn't a declaration of war, rather a policing. This happened, and then continued to happen. The same will apply here. As soon as the government claims a power that isn't theirs, they will continue to keep that power. This isn't a free market any longer. This is a government regulated market. Right now, the government has banned certain types of selling by banks. THEY CANNOT DO THIS!!! The government doesn't have that power. As soon as they take this power, then it turns into an Animal Farm type government. They continue to erode people's rights, and won't stop until they have all of them. It's the slippery slope argument in a nutshell. Let me give some analysis now. Our economy is failing. In all likelihood, it's going to fail. The bailout isn't going to help it, and if we do nothing, it's not going to help it either. But by giving the bailout, it's going to increase the rate at which it happens. No matter the problems with an economic collapse, nothing is going to be worse than the bailout. If our economy collapses, which I truly think it's going to, then we will see something very similar to the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, the government's power increased exponentially. This will happen again, only on a bigger scale. Our government is going to turn into Big Brother...sorry about all the Orwell quotes, but they fit quite well. The bailout isn't a good idea, it will start the government take over of rights. Thank you for the debate, and sorry about missing my first round. It won't happen again.