A Letter to my Congressman

23 December 2008

The Honorable Eric Cantor
Member of Congress
763 Madison Road, Suite 207
Culpeper, Va. 22701

Dear Congressman Cantor:

I am writing to express my views and opinions about several issues facing the Nation at this time.

As always I am concerned about the federal budget. In my opinion the Congress spends far too much on unnecessary projects and wastes precious taxpayer dollars. Congress must do a better job of controlling the budget, although I know it is difficult to do so during an economic downturn when we all want to stimulate the economy. The federal budget consumes more than 3 Trillion dollars; a huge portion of our GDP. It is time to cut wasteful and outdated programs and return to fiscal sanity in federal spending.

In my opinion the current financial crisis was caused in large part by dishonesty and greed. This greed was (is) spread throughout private business and government since Congress wanted to please everyone (thereby get votes) and permeates many sectors of business. Bankers, mortgage lenders, stock brokers, auto company executives, Freddie and Fannie officials, and others, are guilty of excessive greed and downright dishonesty if not criminal actions. An unanswered question on the financial bailout: If the banks sold their sub-prime mortgage loans to Freddie and Fannie and no longer held those “assets”, why did they need a bailout? And of course Freddie and Fannie were bailed out of their irresponsible and dishonest actions that led to this financial meltdown. Recent news indicates that the bailed out banks gave their CEOs more than $1 Billion in bonuses – FROM THE TARP FUNDS. I realize money is fungible, but that is outrageous! Why are they rewarding failure? Are they nuts? I blame Congress and the pressure it placed upon financial institutions to use the Community Reinvestment Act, as revised, to make loans to folks who under normal lending standards would never have qualified for the loans. Hence, the collapse of the housing bubble.

Will anything change as a result of this crisis? Will the CRA be killed or revised so mortgage lenders can return to a sensible mortgage lending system? Will Congress impose new and unworkable restrictions on the mortgage business?
President Bush approved “loans” to GM and Chrysler. I urge you to require them to restructure their operations beginning with the UAW contracts so these two companies can compete and grow providing they offer products the American people want to buy.

A larger problem facing the country is declining morals. Congress is powerless to do anything about this pervasive problem since it has its own problems with ethics. It is the root cause of all of the above and of most of our other social ills.

Congress presents a unique problem. How is the best way to deal with our elected officials In the Congress? I dislike the trend toward lifelong careers in Congress. I think the Founders would be dismayed by the movement, not new, toward lifelong stays in Washington by Members of Congress. If we can limit the terms of presidents, then surely by the same reasoning we can limit the terms of Representatives and Senators. Six terms in the House and two terms in the Senate is what I have in mind with a constitutional amendment worded similar to the XXII Amendment. I realize this may be a touchy issue with you. However, something must be done to infuse fresh blood into our national bodies of government

I have proposed to my family and friends a National Diogenes Night as a symbolic measure to show our displeasure with the current state of politics, the culture, the news media, and the growing gap between American potential and actuality. Scheduled for 10 January 2009 at 7:00 PM I have asked family and friends to walk outside with a light; a candle, a flashlight, a lantern, in a symbolic search for an honest journalist, banker, stock broker, or bureaucrat, etc.. I hope to repeat this effort at later dates.

I realize there are millions of people who do the right thing every day. Unfortunately, too few of them are in the news or in public life.

I thank you for your steadfastness and dedicated service to the people of the 7th District of Virginia and to the people of the United States.

Best regards,

John Dwight Brown
18228 South Merrimac Road
Culpeper, Va, 22701