Published: October 02, 2008 11:30 am            

Hill visits Jeffersonville for perspective on bailout

Congressman Baron Hill said Wednesday he still is uncertain about a $700 billion financial industry bailout.

Hill was in Jeffersonville talking about the issue with elected officials and area residents. The 9th District House member voted against the bailout Monday, but will have another chance Friday after the Senate passed the revised edition of the plan Wednesday night by a count of 74-25.

“Take that money and divide it up among the people and see how much that would stimulate the economy,” Clark County Treasurer Shirley Nolot advised Hill.

She believes a bailout should go to help people struggling with foreclosures, not just banks and lending institutions. Nolot told Hill the middle class is where the stimulus is needed.

Hill, who also stopped in Bloomington Tuesday to seek advice from Hoosiers on the bailout, said constituents have been telling him that they want accountability if a bailout is passed. He added that most are voicing their opposition to the plan, but Hill said many realize that something will have to be done.

He defended his first vote, though Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama told a crowd in Wisconsin Wednesday that he supported a bailout before he voted in favor of it, saying the process was going too fast.

“I felt like they were trying to cram it down our throats,” Hill said.

The new plan is gaining support among House members who voted against the original bailout.

The Associated Press reported House GOP opposition was easing due to new stipulations, including $100 billion in tax breaks for businesses and the middle class, plus an increase in federal deposit insurance from $100,000 to $250,000.

Still, party members on each side of the aisle have differing opinions on the bailout, disagreeing with their partisan colleagues in many cases.

“I think a lot of people are just distrustful of the {President} Bush administration,” Hill said of the division among Congress members in their own parties. “They suckered us once before on the war and a lot of people are saying they are trying to do it again on the economy.”

Hill added Republicans had just recently said the fundamentals of the economy were in good shape, but only a few days later Congress was presented with a package and told they had to act or risk a huge economic downturn.

The revised emergency rescue package gained approval from two Indiana Senators, Democrat Evan Bayh and Republican Dick Lugar.

“The financial rescue legislation will restore credit flow to homeowners, businesses, farmers and all the people who, by the very nature of their businesses, need to borrow money to maintain their activity and keep employees,” Lugar told the AP.

Bayh wasn’t as fired up about the package, but still supported it.

“The current proposal is no panacea. More difficult decisions lie ahead. But it is better than doing nothing, and that is the alternative,” Bayh told the AP.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.