Government should stay out of the way

I send money to GMAC every month so I tend to notice stories about them in the paper. Perhaps I'm hoping to read that they went under so anyone who owes them money can take the new "American way of doing business" and not pay them any more.

I read where GMAC will receive $6 billion in bailout money with only a small portion being a loan. No big story there, the story was about the stipulation that the government made that GMAC had to relax their criteria on who would be eligible for the new car loans (sound familiar?). GMAC agreed and lowered their acceptable credit scores to well below what used to be considered risky.

What is that old saying? "Fool me into making a massive mistake once and shame on you, fool me into making a massive mistake twice and it must be the U.S. government."

I guess since homeownership is "everyone's right" worked out so well they thought they would try "owning a great, new automobile is everyone's right."

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in their never-ending effort to please have often come away looking very shortsighted. But now we are dealing with economic issues on a global scale and we are looking to the people responsible for a large portion of the troubles to fix things. Their "hair of the dog" solution in this case is another fine example of the expertise coming out of Washington.

I really hope the day is coming soon when government realizes the best thing they can do is get out of the way and let capitalism work. My faith in our government's intelligence is getting shaky while at the same time my faith in their honesty and integrity has completely disappeared.

Marc Thomsen

Elk Grove Village