The writer of the Feb. 6 letter, "Supreme Court ruling favors corporations," may want to clarify some points of contention about the Supreme Court ruling and TARP.
First, corporations have a right to free speech. Corporations are made up of people -- people who, until this ruling, had been curtailed in their right to speak freely. The employees, retirees and shareholders of corporations, who number in the millions, now have a voice when it comes to their concerns.
It takes votes to win elections, and the Supreme Court did not give corporations the right to pull the lever in the voting booth. The candidate running the most advertisements doesn't necessarily win an election. The candidate with the most votes does.
Second, TARP has been badly misconstrued by many people. While I don't necessarily agree with how it was administered, TARP was not a bailout; it was a loan to the banks. The banks are paying billions in interest on the TARP funds each quarter. The biggest misconception is that TARP money was to be lent to borrowers; to loan more money after having such losses would only worsen the balance sheets of the banks. As I see it, the problem with the TARP is that the money wasn't given to the stronger, more-secure banks to pick up the pieces of the banks that should have been allowed to fail.
Chad Olson
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Duluth
