Despite the best efforts of the nation’s largest taxpayer group, Congress passed a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry – but that doesn’t mean the battle against big government is lost, according to the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU). Recently NTU and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) teamed together to launch www.BeyondBailouts.org to properly assess the government’s role in the country’s current financial difficulties, establish some real policy solutions for those core problems, and provide an outlet for visitors to petition elected officials.

NTU led the grassroots campaign against the bailout, and, in conjunction with CEI, will continue the fight to ensure that Washington moves “beyond bailouts” toward more solid fiscal and regulatory policy.

“There’s been much finger-pointing around Washington about who’s to blame – for both the conditions that necessitated a rescue package and for allowing one of the largest-ever government intrusions into the private sector to become law,” NTU Government Affairs Manager Andrew Moylan said. “BeyondBailouts.com seeks to move past the blame game by learning from what went wrong, enacting policies to address those mistakes, and enabling taxpayers to get involved and take control of their hard-earned dollars.”

The new web site is structured to answer three main questions: How did we get here? What do we do now? How can I help?

Among the reform recommendations already proposed on the site are:
• Privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
• Prosecute Corrupt Officials
• Suspend Destructive Accounting Rules
• Repeal the Community Investment Act
• Clean Up the Tax Code

“The challenge now is to learn from the mistakes causing the current crisis,” said Fred L. Smith, Jr., President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Our confused regulatory welfare system distorted the market, encouraging bright people to take risks with our money. ‘Profit-side capitalism’ was combined with ‘loss-side socialism’ and this so-called third way must end.”

NTU is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working for lower taxes, smaller government, and economic freedom at all levels. CEI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.

For more information please visit: www.ntu.org, www.cei.org, and www.BeyondBailouts.org.

-GIR-