To the editor:

“An amazing moment,” says Nina Easton on Fox News last night referring to a proposal made by John McCain during the presidential debate on Oct. 7. She went on say that what we witnessed was “The sinking ship of free-market Republicans keel over and groan and fall to the bottom of the sea.”

John McCain, she explained, without fanfare proposed an additional $300 billion – beyond the already approved $700 billion – plan for government to nationalize the mortgages that people cannot pay and to create affordable mortgages.

Nina Easton is wrong to imply that the free-market has failed; we have never had a free market in this country. Government has always been involved and has more often than not been the problem rather than the solution.

The current debacle is no different.

This current financial crisis can be placed directly at the feet of government, not the free-market. Particularly, it can be placed at the feet of the Democrats in Congress. The Republicans in Congress, however, deserve some blame, not for their lack of leadership but rather for their lack of diligent persistence.

If the ship of free market sank last night it was because of all the wormholes of government pork that were drilled into it by the Democrats and their continual affirmation that those wormholes were causing no damage. If the ship of free market sank last night it was because of the lack of persistence by the Republicans who failed to plug those wormholes when they occurred. The Republicans tried but did not persist in imposing more oversight on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Contrary to what Obama says, it is important to look back and assess what happened that caused this fiasco.

Yes, there is a crisis that must be addressed immediately, but as Newt Gringrich said, “We can mop up water all we want but if we don’t fix the leak we will simply have to keep mopping.” We cannot fix the leak without knowing where it is coming from.

Albert Einstein said that the definition of psychosis is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. How can we reelect the same people that caused this problem and expect no more wormholes?

David F. Hiestand

Langley