FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday 9/30/08

CONTACT:
Matthew Robinson -- 617-314-6971
matt@JohnCunningham2008.com

Cunningham decries Wall Street bailout while Markey votes “Yes” on $700 billion boondoggle

Yesterday, amid public outcry against the measure, Congressman Ed Markey voted in favor of the $700 billion bailout plan. John Cunningham, his Republican challenger, says Ed Markey betrayed his constituents by voting for Wall Street, and after 32 years in office, it is time for him to retire.

Revere, MA – Despite the opposition of his constituents over a $700 billion federal bailout plan for failed mortgage lenders and banks, Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey voted in favor of the plan Monday calling it a “regrettable but necessary“1 step to stabilize the economy. Markey’s Republican challenger and opponent of the bill, John Cunningham, was relieved to hear that the bill failed and called the proposed bailout “immoral, unconstitutional, and unfair to the taxpayers who would bear the burden.”

“Bailing out those who made bad investments is unfair to those who invested wisely,” Mr. Cunningham said. “Further, it is an intolerable intervention into private markets that do not need any more ‘government help.’”

“Congressman Markey does not seem to understand the cause of this financial crisis,” said Mr. Cunningham, "so he tries to solve the problem with more of the same–more meddling in the economy and more corporate welfare."

Cunningham, a Republican with a libertarian bent, argued that government should let the markets be free and self-regulating, and that the current crisis is due to government manipulation. "The absolute worst conclusion we could draw from this mess is that the free market is to blame, and that more government intervention is needed to stabilize the economy," continued Mr. Cunningham. "We don't have a free market; neither today nor anytime in the recent past. We have a managed economy full of corporatism that stifles competition and insulates big business from the market forces that would ordinarily prevent this kind of disaster. Congressman Markey is continuing to feed a bloated system by supporting further interference into the economy. He doesn’t seem to understand or care that it’s wrong, but when you send me to Washington, feeding time for corporatism is over."

Cunningham further pointed out what he said were “fundamental flaws” in our economy, “The economy is unstable because our system is inherently flawed–the Federal Reserve System creates a false illusion of prosperity by maintaining a currency that has no real backing or hard value. When times get tough, the Federal Reserve resorts to printing more money, which devalues the dollar and is an inflation tax on all of us. Today’s crisis is another indication of the flaws in a system where money can be based on nothing but debt. You can trust as your Congressman, I will work to restore our monetary system to the constitutional model–a free market with a currency that has real value.”

1- http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=3455&Itemi...