My Vote: NO by Dick Armey on National Review Online

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDFkMTc3NWMwOGQxN2Y3MjNkMjQ5ZTJkYmMyMjJlYWQ=

As a free-market economist I unequivocally oppose this legislation because it violates the basic working tenets of free-market capitalism and individual responsibility.

Granting the Treasury broad authority to buy troubled assets from private entities poses a significant threat to taxpayers and fundamentally alters the relationship between the private economy and the federal government. Despite the sweeping breadth of the proposed bailout, there is virtually nothing in the bill that addresses the underlying problems that created the housing bubble and the oversized and over-leveraged financial services sector that grew with it. 

As a Public Choice professor, I used to begin class each semester with Armey's Axiom number one: "The market is rational and the government is dumb." Those quick to call for more regulation forget the power of markets, and refuse to acknowledge government culpability in the current mess. Time and again, governments the world over have attempted to outsmart the market and the current legislation is no exception. And time after time, markets respond, toppling the best-laid government plans as they move to correctly price the underlying assets in exchange.