It is important to realize that if the housing market had not burst, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have made billions. They took a gamble, they lost, and now the U.S. government plans to bail them out of debt by simply handing over $700 billion—more than the entire cost of the Iraq war so far. It is unfair and ineffective to reward the greed and recklessness of the banks with a blank check coming straight out of taxpayer’s pockets. The government should treat banks like every other institution and make them pay for the consequences of their actions.

Say, for example, an average Joe goes to Las Vegas, eager to strike it rich, and gambles away his daughter’s entire educational fund in one night. Should the government give him back what he lost? Sadly, the answer is no, because it was his choice to gamble the money, and now he must clean up his own financial mess. The banks failed because of poor management and widespread greed—qualities that should not be rewarded. It is unfair to privatize the banks’ profits while socializing their risk.

In addition, by bailing out the banks, we are stealing from taxpayers. To pay for this $700 billion bailout, each taxpayer in the United States will have to cough up over $2,300. Sure, the government won’t raise taxes or send bills home tomorrow—instead it will sell bonds to other countries to raise the money. This, however, only postpones the problem; eventually, the money we spent will have to be paid back with interest. Taxpayers didn’t cause the problem, so they shouldn’t have to pay for it.

The bailout plan also neglects the citizens who bear the brunt of this problem. We have chosen to bail out the failing banks, while bankrupt citizens, the root of the crisis, are left with nothing. The banks are failing because people cannot pay their loans, so they file for bankruptcy, usually causing them to lose their house or car. It is unethical to bail out the banks and leave U.S. citizens bankrupt and without a place to sleep. A government is supposed to serve its citizens, not large financial institutions.

Some argue that by pouring money into banks and insurance companies, the entire economy will be jump started. This claim, however, is an extremely short-sighted approach. Unless we change the fundamental game plan of the U.S. economy, this bailout will only postpone the problem until again, the banks run out of money. Just look at how well the AIG bailout went—the U.S. government gave AIG $85 billion so that they could take time selling off their mortgages in an orderly manner, but two weeks and $61 billion dollars later they haven’t even started the selling process. What we need to do is let the banks deal with their own problems so that next time around they consider the risks as well as the profits of subprime investments.

Some economist argue that not only will the bailout be ineffective, it could be harmful to the economy overall. Such a large influx of money into the U.S. economy could cause widespread inflation causing the dollar to decrease in value. This would mean that not only do you have to pay for the bill, but the money that you have sitting in the bank will actually become worth less. Moreover, the plan hasn’t even worked. The stock markets have not rebounded as expected and the Dow is still around 1000 points below what it was the day the bailout was passed.

The bailout plan is costly to U.S. taxpayers and incredibly ineffective. The government needs to leave Wall Street alone and let the strongest and most efficient companies survive while letting the foolish and greedy companies pass away. If our government steps aside, America will be left with only the best of the best. From an economic standpoint, less seems to be more.