Anchorage Daily News

Alaskans who want to understand the choice awaiting them for Congress in November should take a close look at the Wall Street bailout/rescue plan. It reveals a lot about the way Congressman Don Young and challenger Ethan Berkowitz would handle the job.

When President Bush first proposed a $700 billion bailout, the overwhelming majority of Alaskans were outraged, along with their fellow Americans.

And for good reason.

Financial wheeler-dealers on Wall Street spent much of the decade reaping billions of dollars from complex and risky investment schemes. When their financial bubble finally burst, the implosion threatened to sink the nation's entire economy. Meanwhile, the executives responsible for the mess sailed off into the sunset unscathed, perhaps chuckling at the fools who would have to pay for cleaning up their mess.

"Outrageous" doesn't begin to describe it.

So Alaska Congressman Don Young was both right and righteous when he helped kill President Bush's first bailout plan.

It seemed to reward the gamblers who had pushed the economy to the brink of ruin. The government would rush to the "rescue," buying those lousy loans and failing investments. The financial pirates responsible for the mess got off easy, while struggling homeowners got little help and Americans got no protection against a repeat fiasco.

The ''no'' vote in the House spooked Wall Street. But it forced President Bush to turn a big-time bailout into a legitimate rescue package.

Not that the second version was perfect. It is vague on how homeowners facing foreclosure will get any help to stay in their homes. But it made a huge change that cured one of the first bailout plan's biggest defects.

Instead of just buying the junk assets, the government will also get the right to take non-voting stock in the ailing companies. If the government aid enables the companies to bounce back, the government's stock options will let taxpayers share directly in the firms' renewed good fortune.

Government won't start running the companies, because the stock won't carry voting rights. But taxpayers can share in any upside recovery that their money helps produce.

With that change and other improvements, the Senate easily approved the rescue measure. Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski voted for it.

But Don Young was still a staunch "no" vote. In Monday's AARP debate in Anchorage, he explained why.

He said it gave too much power -- $700 billion of spending authority -- to one man, the secretary of the Treasury. He said it is wrong to bail out those on Wall Street who misused the money. He said it was rushed through, with no hearings, in just five days. He got 3,800 calls about it and barely 300 supported the rescue plan.

Rep. Young didn't say what he expected to happen if Congress did nothing. He didn't say what would have made a rescue plan acceptable. Congressman Young stuck with his populist position -- make Wall Street eat crow, apparently without regard to what it does to the economy.

Almost sounds like a die-hard, soak-the-rich Democrat.

Young's challenger, Democrat Ethan Berkowitz, sided with Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens. Berkowitz said he would have been "a reluctant supporter" of the final rescue package. He realized that Alaskans would suffer from leaving the crisis unresolved. Alaskans' investments and pensions and businesses would be at risk. He promised more oversight of Wall Street.

Don Young blamed the lack of oversight on Democratic President Bill Clinton, who left office almost eight years ago.

So on the one side, Alaskans have a congressional candidate willing to go against the popular grain, because it's what's best for the economy and the country. On the other side is someone who heeded popular outrage but didn't offer a better alternative and blamed the situation on others who left the political stage long ago.

BOTTOM LINE: Look closely at the Wall Street bailout/rescue plans, and you'll see important differences between Alaska's congressional candidates.

ADVERTISEMENT