To the editor:

I am opposed to any kind of bail out of the lenders and/or the borrowers in the current home mortgage crisis. Why should the taxpayers that were not greed-driven or stupid enough to overextend themselves pay for the ones that did and got burned? We don’t do it for the stock market losers that gamble on the same sort of “bubbles.” This is no different.

I’ve seen people in my own neighborhood (Cape Coral) sell their houses when the demand was sky high and take their profits and buy bigger houses to increase their gains (as if the risk was negligible). Now a lot of them, all over the country, including first- time buyers that tried to take advantage of the situation, are crying and declaring bankruptcy because they made the wrong decision (or gamble, in most cases).

What’s next? If you buy a Cadillac you can’t afford and it’s in danger of repossession, can you cry to the government and expect them to go to the taxpayers to help you out? Let’s quit all this BS about the “poor” people that tried to take advantage of a situation and lost. “Caveat Emptor” has been a driving force of this and most other successful countries for millennia.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m an honest, taxpaying, responsible, individual. If the government uses my taxes for any more redistribution of wealth (as in the dumb tax rebate that gives from the taxpayers that pay the most to those that pay the least) I’m afraid I’m going to have to look around for some creative accounting tax ploys. I mean if Wesley Snipes can claim millions because “only foreign income” is taxable, and get away with it (“the devil made me do it”) I should be able to save a thousand or so on my retirement/investment income.

My point being that honest, responsible, tax-paying people are not stupid, and if you keep gulling them they will respond by finding a way to lessen their burden, even if it means doing something unethical and repugnant.

James J. Tanner

Cape Coral