Congressman Pickering: Please Resign

Dear Congressman Pickering:

Please resign and let Gregg Harper assume office several weeks early. This sounds harsh but frankly you failed your constituents recently when the bailout bill passed as you earned the distinction of being the ONLY Mississippian in the House or Senate that voted for its passage. Your constituents knew this was a bad bill as the calls to your office ran very heavily against it. Despite what they told you in emails and phone calls, you instead chose to support a bill that has been nothing but a disaster.

You violated your so-called conservative principles in allowing the Secretary of the Treasury to FORCE companies to sell shares to the government. While Americans are burdened by the costs of this bailout, a market meltdown, and a slowing economy, you chose to vote for sending money to the Chinese and other foreign banks instead of protecting your constituents. However, the worst part was you voted in lapdog fashion for a Treasury Secretary's lies that this bill going to be used for the purchase of toxic assets and mortgages by the federal government so that the markets could stabilize. Instead, the markets have plummeted and Paulson admitted lying to Congress and the American people.

As fewer and fewer people have any confidence in Paulson, it is time to start holding our representatives who voted for this debacle accountable. It sickens me that only a few left-wingers like Kucinich were grilling Paulson's stooge yesterday over his misrepresentations while most Republican congressmen sat on their hands. This is a Treasury Secretary who has helped his friend at the Fed send $2 trillion to the banks while refusing to tell us where our money is going. He lied to us when lobbying for passage of the bill. Paulson lobbied in 2000 and 2004 for the SEC to change its rules on leverage limits, which are the main cause for the market meltdowns. Every time Paulson has announced a new measure to cure the financial crisis, within a few days or weeks, he changes his story.

I remember when you announced your decision not to run for re-election that after the Democrats won in 2006, you said being in Congress " wasn't fun anymore" in a statement that was a far cry from what true conservatives such as Gingrich and Kasich would have said. In fact, Gingrich went on Fox News during the debate and gave you the blueprint: vote no, tear up the bill, start from scratch, get some real Reagan conservatives around the table, and propose a realistic plan instead of this joke. However, voting for socialism (and that is exactly what nationalizing banks and other industries are) while claiming to be a conservative is nothing but a betrayal of your campaign promises to us as well as your duty to represent our interests. We voted for a conservative defender, not a Bush-Paulson-Pelosi-Reid lapdog.

If you have mailed it in and refuse to apologize to your constituents for voting for this bailout mess, you should resign. There is going to be a lame-duck session and the Democrats are going to attempt to use this bailout package to further nationalize more of American industry. If you are not willing to fight for conservative principles and the best interests of the Third District as principled conservatives such as Congressmen McCotter and others have done, then you should resign and allow Gregg Harper to fight for us.