Published: October 03, 2008 10:53 am      

Wall Street’s burden reaches Main Street

Remember that scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” where George and the rest of the Bailey Building and Loan crew dance their two remaining dollars into a safe, encouraging them to have a family soon?

As the Great Depression looms, the hometown hero forfeits his honeymoon to save the day. He keeps the Building and Loan afloat and away from Henry Potter’s greedy grasp in small-town America on the verge of economic downfall.

At the end of the day, $2 remains from the stash. The neighbors walk away satisfied, and disaster is averted.

While the movie declared the most inspirational in American filmmaking history is now a holiday staple, the Depression-era events it traced were largely unfamiliar to most of its modern-day viewers — until this week.

For weeks, headlines have carried news that one financial giant after another is on the brink of collapse.

Lawmakers mulled a $700 billion bailout that would put the government in charge of the same high-stakes loans that brought the banks under, and proponents backed a plan many taxpayers feared would make them pay for putting big-time banks back in the black.

And, like George’s honeymoon stash, our 401K plans dwindled, while we hoped the remaining funds would have a big family again, real soon.

Much like the cultural and human divide between the Bailey Building and Loan and Potter’s business model, Americans in 2008 have discovered the divide between Main Street and Wall Street.

According to a “Time Magazine” story released this week, most Americans in small and middle-sized oppose the idea of bailing out the big financial institutions that failed to manage their money well enough to stay afloat, even if the voters understand the need to keep the stock market solvent.

It’s hard for those of us working long hours for relatively little pay to understand why our taxes have to patch the golden parachutes of lenders who never said no in cities many of us can’t afford to visit. Yet, we are stable, while they are sinking.

Clearly, the bitterness didn’t stop with those of us in Princeton, or Charleston, or even the small towns throughout the Southeast. It rang clear and loud from our lawmakers who grudgingly supported the Senate version of the bailout bill late Wednesday but still voiced their anger at the reason they cast votes in the first place.

“This is an enormous package – $700 billion. That ain’t chicken feed! That’s 17 times what we spend annually on health care for our nation’s veterans. That’s 14 times what we spend annually on highways and mass transportation. That’s more than the annual defense budget, which supplies our troops and fuels our planes and naval vessels around the globe. That’s more than the total amount the Federal government will spend on homeland security over the next 17 years,” Sen. Robert C. Byrd declared on the Senate floor. “And that number actually hides the real potential cost, because the Treasury Secretary would be authorized to buy and sell an unlimited amount of these troubled assets in the next two years.”

As he tallied the numbers, Byrd also reminded leaders that an economic stimulus package that included unemployment and other benefits for people who fell victim to the financial turmoil met filibusters and delays. But, the bailout remained on the Congressional agenda until some form passes.

“Apparently Wall Street institutions are too big and too important to be allowed to fail, but the same isn’t true when it comes to working families,” Byrd said.

Though his comments were more calmly delivered after the vote, Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s thoughts hit many of the same points Byrd hammered.

“Nothing matters more to me than helping West Virginia families hold on to their life savings, their jobs, their homes, their retirement, and their hopes for the future ... I joined with my colleagues to pass a rescue plan that aims to shore up the economy and prevent West Virginians from becoming the next victims of the Wall Street fallout,” Rockefeller said in a media release Wednesday. “I absolutely share your anger and frustration. We shouldn’t be in this situation, but we are facing a true crisis. Failure to act will severely hurt West Virginia families, and that is a risk I am not willing to take.”

West Virginians have long known our hills and valleys shield us largely from the peaks and pits of a Wall Street and stock market that is definitely more bear than bull these days. And, though it’s tough to swallow a bailout plan that seems predestined to use us to save our big-city neighbors, like Byrd and Rockefeller, we too will step back and look at the big financial picture and our place in the financial pie charts.

Though our hearts may not be as willing as George’s, we will send our tax dollars elsewhere and tighten our belts at home to make ends meet, hoping our dollars will be as fruitful as the two he locked up for Bedford Falls posterity.

We’ll hope that the Potters who put us in this mess have learned their lessons this time around, and we’ll look after the neighbors whose lives touch us far more than the ups and downs of the Dow.

Tammie Toler is Princeton Times editor. Contact her at ttoler@ptonline.net.