I believe that both Democratic and Republican leadership knew about the possibility of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s demise many months ago. There were oversight and transparency committees already in place to make sure those huge companies remained solvent.

Members of Congress knew about the golden parachutes for highly paid executives, and I believe they knew that many large financial companies would fail, causing a significant financial crisis felt throughout the world.

In order to solve the problem, Congress passed the $700 billion bailout bill, which will burden taxpayers to pay for that enormous, unscrupulous, greedy turn of events, placed on the taxpayers’ shoulders.

Does anyone believe that any oversight committee will keep tabs on those companies in the future, knowing that our elected officials are being paid off by lobbyists, as they were before?

Who can anyone trust?

Who is looking at the elected officials to make sure that greed does not replace honesty and integrity?

It is up to us, the public. It is our problem if we don’t demand transparency from those elected officials.

Daniel R. Lalonde Sr., Lewiston