got my response back from congress today, this is what it said.
Dear Danny,
You were good to give me your thoughts on recent financial rescue packages. I voted for the financial market rescue, but I can't support the proposed auto industry rescue package. The auto industry needs cultural transformation to be viable in the future and not just tinkering to get taxpayer bailout funds.
The proposed $25 billion auto industry rescue is aimed at a single industry. That industry is vital to America, but so was a robust textile industry. The things that ail the domestic car producers-archaic union work rules and unsustainable salary and benefit packages-don't ail successful manufacturers like BMW. This crisis calls for all players to see it in their best interest to remake themselves into a wholly different industry and shed legacy costs and thinking. A prepackaged bankruptcy option may be the only way to cleanly break from the past.
The $700 billion financial market rescue, in contrast, was an effort to prevent a systemic collapse of the banking system on which we all rely. In the Great Depression the government was slow to act, and the Federal Reserve Board kept a tight money policy. Many economists believe that those mistakes made the Depression worse than it might have been. Hopefully, the quick and unprecedented actions by the federal government (President Bush and the Congress acting together) will keep this downturn from becoming catastrophic.
Thanks again for sharing your comments. For more information on today's top issues, please visit the Fourth District Web site at
www.inglis.house.gov.
This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.
Best regards,
Bob Inglis