Granger did the right thing

When the stakes are high — and $700 billion qualifies — what we look for from our leaders is leadership. I am grateful for Rep. Kay Granger’s leadership this week as she swallowed hard and cast her vote to allow liquidity to be restored in our credit markets.

While I can find not one person happy to spend this kind of money because of our near unanimous belief that it didn’t have to be this way, neither can I find anyone who really wants to bear the pain of a huge shock to the U.S. and world economy that not acting will likely bring.

Put it this way: there is a world of difference in finding the bottom of the real estate bubble at 10 mph versus 100 mph. Ten will scrape and bruise us, a hundred will break bones. At 10 mph we can quickly recover a little battered, at 100 mph our bitterness, fear and real damage to lives everywhere may not allow us to recover for years.

It is entirely human for us to react angrily and to demand our pound of flesh for what we believe are other’s misdeeds. It is also entirely human for us to engage our forebrains and look as dispassionately as possible at the math, which nearly every responsible and knowledgeable economist in the country has done, and see that we now need to set our feelings aside and act responsibly to shore up the credit markets to cushion to the extent we can the inevitable bitter pill of the free market adjusting itself.

— Bill Lanford, Haltom City