Where have all the leaders gone?

I have refrained from commenting on the national financial crisis and bailout plans until now because, frankly, I really had no idea of what caused them and/or what could fix them. The reason I am commenting now is because I am worried that no one in charge has any idea either.

President Bush's address last night did absolutely nothing to reassure me. Basically he said, "Trust me, my bailout plan will work and it must be passed immediately." Kinda reminded me of when he said "Trust me, invading Iraq will quickly end the war on terror." What Bush said was that we taxpayers were going to have to shell out $700 billion to fix a problem without much oversight from Congress or the judiciary. That's scary. He said he would protect taxpayers, but he didn't say how. Again, it was little more than "Trust me, I know what I'm doing." My problem is I'm not sure he does know, especially when I fear his penchant for deregulation and his massive tax cuts for the businesses and the leaders of those businesses that now need a bailout seemed to have precipated much of this mess.

The other thing that worries me is that I am not that convinced that help is on the horizon. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama have come up with any viable solutions either. Mr. Obama has come closer. At least he is calling for more regulation of the financial industry and that the only way we are going to ever get out of this financial hole we have dug for ourselves is for the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes. But just when I think Obama is about to announce a complete recovery plan, he stops.

McCain, on the other hand, hasn't offered any idea on how taxpayers will recover the bailout money and his continued favoring of tax cuts for the wealthy dooms future generations with the burdon of these deficits. What's worse is that just when Americans need to see for themselves which candidate could best lead us out of this mess, McCain has suggested postponing the debates that will help us make those kind of decisions.

One person has, however, come forward. Check it out.