To the editor:

Well it looks like I, and millions like me, made a big mistake. Instead of buying a house we could afford and continuing to pay off our mortgages, we should have bought mansions or maybe now find a way to stop paying on our present mortgages. That way the government would feel sorry for us and bail us out.

It’s nice to think the government can spend their way out of anything – like the mortgage crisis, the banking crisis, the auto crisis, ad infinitum.

But wait; where does the government get all this money? Yeah, right. Maybe we should all pull a Wesley Snipes and not pay taxes. After all, he’s still on the street.

Imagine the chaos if enough people got together and pulled the same thing. What would the government do? They wouldn’t be able to afford to build all the new prisons or hire all the new “tax enforcers” required to arrest and confine the “tax dodgers.” In fact they wouldn’t be able to pay all the politicians, but, of course, I’m sure they would all work for nothing – yeah, right again!

I’m sure by now you see my point. The economy moves in cycles. Now it’s down but it will come back up. Investors (like me) realize this and ride it out. We don’t ask for bailouts when we lose money (or at least most of us don’t). I’m sure there are people out there that need help and deserve it. Good times or bad, that doesn’t change. That is where tax money should go – over and above the cost of the valid expenses of keeping our country running. Not for businesses or individuals that tried to take advantage of the system or prevailing economic conditions. They gambled or made bad choices. Neither should qualify them for a “bailout.” After all, isn’t that what “free enterprise” is all about?

James J. Tanner,

Cape Coral