John McCain Won't Give Free Rides to the Irresponsible

Just a couple of days ago, de facto Republican Presidential nominee Senator John McCain delivered a message of tempered-and temporary-federal government help.

Speaking publicly from Santa Ana, California, John McCain said, "It is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers. Government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy."

Clearly, McCain does not buy in to the Democrats' buying of people's souls, in which they guarantee to ride to the rescue of people who have been, for the most part, willfully irresponsible.

This writer has been in the mortgage business, playing the role of loan officer. I know for a fact that the mortgage lending business is one of the most transparent across the land.

Yes, it's true that mortgage advertising is permitted to be as false as National Star headlines and photos. But once a potential buyer is enticed into biting on the bait of a possible great deal, either for a purchase or a refinance, the game board is turned around. From that point on, the potential mortgage buyer becomes next to overwhelmed by the disclosure documents that he has to sign just to close the deal. It's not for nothing that people often joke that they have had to sign their life or children away to the government, or the Devil, just to get a mortgage.

Furthering the cause of transparency is one of the precious few legitimate reasons to introduce new legislation into the mortgage industry or the market in general. The mortgage industry, for anyone who takes the time and trouble to read what is laid before him, is as transparent as industries come.

Yet these facts did not stop a Democrat supporter and McCain opponent to quip, in protest, "The government has a number of tools at its disposal."

What kind of tools might these be?

Arbitrary, top-down, from on High, iron-fisted "tools" that give government, whether it be in name Democrat or Republican, ever more direct control over our personal and social lives.

"Lenders ended up violating a basic rule of banking: Don't lend people money who can't pay it back," said McCain in the same speech.

But heeding that kind of discipline isn't on the minds of those who would arrogate to themselves the role of saving us from ourselves. And it's easy to see where they would begin...but the more pertinent, and penetrating, question is "where will it all end?"