For those interested in the subject of school choice, I have started a new blog dedicated to that subject at http://vouchersystem.blogspot.com/. Please join me.

Those that are not Californians may not have heard about this story (video included). California cities want to buy up foreclosed homes and flip them. The story, out of Sacramento, says:

Now the federal government is stepping in and sending cash to the hardest hit areas. The Sacramento region is getting one of the biggest bailouts, and receiving $32 million dollars.

“To purchase foreclosed homes in troubled neighborhoods and flip those homes,” says a city representative. Mayor Fargo says the homes will be fixed up and then sold or rented out.

Now I’m no genius (which maybe means that I’m qualified to work for the government), but this seems like a terrible idea. I was against the bailout before I heard this. This kind of foolery just solidifies the inevitable conclusion that the bailout was a historically bad idea.

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Cross-posted at That’s Debatable?! (For those that would like to engage in serious debate, join me and other bloggers at That’s Debatable?!)

Timotheus has got it exactly right. This is the perfect storm of politics and problems – a recipe for wrongheaded government action. Like Timotheus, I have no doubt that the financial problems are real and will hurt the economy. I don’t want to diminish the very real hurt that will likely come.

Still, it seems as though conservatives like us – defenders of the free market principles that have built and sustained this country for almost two and half centuries – should not so quickly abandon our principles in the face of adversity. Indeed, it is when the call for government action into markets is so strong that we need to be most resolute. I could cite numerous sources of economists and other market watchers who can place the blame squarely on bad government policy – government incentives to lend to undeserving borrowers. Yet politicians think that more government is the answer, while doing nothing to address the underlying bad government policies.

Unfortunately, many elected officials can only see the expediency of the next election. These are the same people that have allowed the budget to bloat beyond control. They see the vote for the “bail-out” as their ticket to re-election – a way to show constitutents that they were “doing something.” That kind of “doing something” is the kind of good intentions that lead to one of those four letter words.

I haven’t seen any Romney quotes on the proposed bail-out. McCain has offered Romney’s name and Michael Bloomberg’s and Warren Buffet’s as potential executives to oversee the plan.

That being said, Romney had a saying in the primary that I thought was spot on: “When Republicans act like Democrats, everybody loses.” I can’t help but think that the bail-out is exactly the kind of thing that Romney was talking about.

President Bush, for all the credit he gets for tax cuts, deserves some serious blame for previously expanding the budget more than LBJ and now proposing the largest socialization this country has seen since FDR. He has turned his back on the free market and the principles of prosperity that underly it. If that is not acting like a Democrat, I don’t know what is. The ultimate consequence, as our man Mitt said so succinctly, is that everyone is going to lose.

Businesses will lose by not being punished for their bad behavior (i.e. lending with no prospect of being repaid) and not learning the lessons from their bad behavior. Taxpayers will lose because all we are taking on is debt, with no prospect of a profitable (or likely any) return. The government will lose because the additional debt could (and I think likely will) swamp the solvency of the government itself, destroying the value of the dollar and preventing the government from getting loans (even from such predators as China) to cover its own debts. All this will lead to the problem becoming not just a financial sector and housing problem, but to being a broader crisis of all Americans AND its government, too.

In short, everyone loses, all because Republicans and other defenders of market principles don’t have the courage to say that the market can and will correct the problem, which it is doing right now by punishing those institutions and homeowners who were reckless. Republicans should know better than proposing such an anti-market plan. The bail-out will not just lead to socialism, it is socialism. It is government at its worst, fighting against the market to impose its own idea of economics. It’s the type of thing we have come to expect from Democrats. Now that Republicans have taken on a similar tactic, we will all lose.

…literally. From the PolitickerMA:

A lot of people talked about Mitt Romney filling out the Republican ticket this year, but, according to a former campaign adviser, Romney was actually betting against himself.

Ron Kaufman, a close friend of Romney’s who worked on his aborted presidential campaign, said there was a bet between the two of them over Romney’s chances of getting tapped as John McCain’s vice presidential nominee.

Kaufman bet the former governor would be on the ticket. Romney said he wouldn’t make it.

With Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska prepared to accept the nomination here this week, Kaufman said he is donating his stake to two charity events Romney is attending during the Republican National Convention.

The beneficiaries of the wager will be U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Erik Paulsen, who is running in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District.

NRO is all over the VP speculation:

Byron York says that he’s hearing McCain has made the decision and told his staff.

York then says that while Lieberman would be the choice if McCain would win no matter what, that’s not the situation McCain faces.

Yuval Levin then discusses Romneyphobia, stating “Judging by the Obama camp’s assorted efforts to prepare the ground for McCain’s VP choice on Friday, they seem to be terrified of Mitt Romney.”

Larry Kudlow says that he’s hearing Tim Pawlenty and Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Ramesh Ponnuru notes that KBH is moderately pro-choice.

Finally, David Frum inexplicably attacks Romney as a VP choice, citing old lines of attack.

“The primaries are over,” Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said when asked for comment about Huckabee’s statements. “Now, the task of all Republicans is on uniting the party to help elect John McCain, not on sowing division.”

Apparently not all feel the same.

For any California readers (and any others interested), I began a new blog in defense of traditional marriage in the lead up to the November ballot. As a citizen of California I want to help persuade people to vote for the constitutional amendment to defend traditional marriage.

Please come by and visit http://calmarriagedefense.blogspot.com/.

This week, as we celebrate the fourth of July and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I took the time to actually read the Declaration itself. The Declaration’s wisdom is self-evident, although its prudence at the time was far from certain. The full scope of the historical context eludes me, but its expression of principles seems as relevant today as it must have then.

Many times we stop at the profound enunciation of equality among men as the singular achievement of the document. After having read the Declaration again, this view seems to be incomplete at best. The statement that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” is but a preface to the larger point of the Declaration: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The Declaration continues on describing how and when the governed have the right and obligation to change the form of government under which they live.

The Declaration of Independence carries no legal force today. Our rights, or more properly the rights of our government, derive from the Constitution. Still, the Declaration is properly held out as one of the bases of our understanding of the purpose and nature of government. Jefferson states that “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish [the government], and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Jefferson adds that prudence and experience should serve as our guides in altering, or abolishing as was their case, the government.

Given these principles, it is right to look at the present government and assess whether it effects our “Safety and Happiness” and whether it secures our natural rights to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Particularly relevant are those measures, provisions, and candidates that are on the upcoming ballot. Experience and prudence should be our guide.

Equally important is our right to rebuke the courts. Several court decisions at both the state and federal level have either rejected the will of the people or created law out of pure whim. However, the final word on any matter rests with the people. We should not passively submit while judges dispense law inconsistent with the will of the people, much in the same way the king did at the time of the Revolutionary War. We can find common ground in the revolutionary mantra of “taxation without representation” with current programs and rights that have come without representation: same-sex marriage, enemy combatant habeus corpus rights, etc. We should likewise reject this kind of judicial despotism like our ancestors did to despotism in their time.

What makes this relevant to this blog is that these are the kinds of principles our man Mitt espoused. Last year at this time he said:

For more than two centuries, the United States has stood for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our freedoms have not been easily won. Today, brave men and women are fighting to preserve those freedoms. As we gather with friends and family, let us resolve to keep America strong. We will always be the hope of the world and a beacon of light to liberty-loving people everywhere.