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Congress is debating a bailout of the nation’s financial industry that could leave the Secretary of the Treasury with the power to spend up to $1 trillion, yup with a T, in taxpayers’ money and create the biggest move toward national socialism since the advent of Social Security.

Now, unlike some conservatives out there, i am not completely opposed to socialism. I like the idea of socialized medicine. I do not believe that who you are and how much you can should affect whether you are treated for illness or not. I am also coming around to the idea of state-owned utilities.

Several of the biggest oil companies in the world are government-owned, just not by this government. Sure, there would be a huge public outcry and repurcussions if we antionalized all America’s oil and natural gas, but look around the world at the nations that have done it: Saudi did it just after American drillers found oil there, Mexico did it in the 1920s to get rid of American-owned oil companies there. Venezuela’s done and well, British Petroleum is…British.

There are lots of worldwide precedents for it and it might be the biggest step toward solving the energy crisis that is developing in the United States. But, no one in any power is proposing that, so I can avoiding deciding right now if I think it’s a truly good idea or not.

What I do know, beyond a doubt, is that bailing out the financial giants that are embroiled in the sb-prime lending crisis is a terrifically bad idea. It results in the American taxpayer owning something that they have no idea how to control and extends a horrible precedent.

For too long, Americans have tried to ride the fence between capitalism and socialism. Now, we need to make a choice, either we believe in capitalism with all its ups and downs and sometimes people lose money or we don’t.

There is a growing economic divide in this country and by bailing out the big boys when they screw up, Congress is simply widening the divide. The bailout is unlikely to help the average investor, taxpayer or home owner. It will not keep people from losing their homes. It will give a single person, appointed by the president, huge control over the economics of the nation.

Treasury Secretary Paulson may be a great guy and a wonderful financial manager, but will his successor be? Is it really a good idea to subvert the power of Congress and the Constitution this way? Call me kooky. Hell, call me right-wing, but this form of liberal politics scares the bejesus out of me and I can’t afford to emigrate right now.

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