Candidates react to House member votes on bailout package

While eating breakfast this morning, I couldn’t decide which part of the newspaper I was reading was depressing me the most: the news section, the business section or the sports section. It was all pretty much a downer.

Oh well, life goes on. And our government goes on. And on, and on, and on …

There were a few hundred million dollars worth of goodies in the $700 billion bailout package signed into law yesterday. For all the talk about how necessary this legislation was to stabilize the financial markets and thwart further harm to taxpayers, lawmakers can’t resist bulking it up with pork.

That’s Washington for you.

For our newspaper Web sites, I wrote an article today about how U.S. Reps. Judy Biggert, R-13th District, of Hinsdale; Bill Foster, D-14th District, of Geneva; Dan Lipinski, D-3rd District, of Western Springs; and Peter Roskam, R-6th District, of Wheaton voted yesterday on the bailout package and why they voted this way. To allow voters to compare and contrast, I’m going to highlight the positions of those running against these members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Let’s start with how each House member voted. Biggert switched her position and voted for the legislation; Foster maintained his support for it and voted to approve the measure. Both Lipinski and Roskam continued to oppose the bill and voted against it.

Republican Michael Hawkins and Green Party candidate Jerome Pohlen are challenging Lipinski in the 3rd Congressional District. While both have Web sites dedicated to their campaigns, neither had posted anything regarding the bailout legislation.

Jill Morgenthaler of Des Plaines is the Democratic challenger running against Roskam in the 6th Congressional District. She said she would have voted for the bailout package.

A posting on her Web site read, “Congressman Peter Roskam has been AWOL in the effort to shape a financial market rescue over the past few weeks. According to his challenger, … Roskam has failed his constituents. Illinois’ 6th District has a seat on the Financial Services Committee. But while other members of Congress were hard at work trying to come up with a plan to save the retirement plans of millions of Americans, to salvage the credit lines necessary to keep small businesses functioning and to keep the American financial markets from crumbling, Peter Roskam sat on his hands, proving yet again that he is not able to reach across the aisle to get things done.”

Steve Alesch of Warrenville is the Green Party candidate for the 13th Congressional District, while Scott Harper of Lockport is the Democratic challenger. Harper criticized Biggert’s previous vote against the bailout package on his Web site. But since Biggert ended up voting for the legislation yesterday, it’s uncertain how Harper would have reacted since he didn’t update his Web site with comments about the most recent vote.

On his Web site, Alesch doesn’t specifically address yesterday’s vote. Rather he offers a few general postings (titled “Forget bailouts: Alesch outlines alternative energy economy” and “The financial meltdown requires far-reaching green solutions, Green Party leaders say“) about the need for green alternatives. (Update: In a comment about this post, Green Party candidate Steve Alesch challenges my assertion that his Web postings were “general,” and indeed he is right. Read his comments following this post, and see a new post I’ve made Oct. 10 explaining my error. I appreciate Alesch pointing out my mistake.)

“Instead of bromides, unconvincing reassurances and ineffective half-measures that we’re hearing from John McCain and Barack Obama and their fellow Republicans and Democrats, we need to take drastic steps. We need green measures to fix a system that doesn’t work,” Alesch said in one of his postings.

Jim Oberweis of Sugar Grove is the Republican candidate for the 14th Congressional District. In a statement on his Web site released Wednesday, he said he supported House members who voted against the bailout plan.

“I would have voted against the bailout legislation that was before the House on Monday,” Oberweis said in his statement. “And the fact of the matter is, no matter what the House leadership might do today and tomorrow to gussy it up, the core idea — using taxpayer funds to buy bad assets — is so fundamentally flawed that there’s just no way to make good sense of that.”

So that’s what the candidates had to say. What do you think? Leave a comment.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::