A national GOP delegate from Kansas who co-sponsored a resolution condemning the federal government for its embrace of bailouts said Tuesday she backed the resolution because she believed it was important that the Republican Party reiterate the "core principles" of the party in the face of bailout mania.

“As a co-sponsor of the resolution, my hope is to send a strong message to everyone who reads it that our GOP will return to our ideals of lower taxes and smaller government,” Helen Van Etten, one of three Kansas delegates to the GOP, told Kansas Liberty in e-mail correspondence.

The strongly worded resolution, issued Monday and signed by 10 Republican Party delegates, including primary sponsor Jim Bopp, vice-chair of the Republican National Committee, bashed the bailout of the banking industry and implored President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama to oppose additional bailouts in favor of more fiscally conservative solutions.

Van Etten said she believed it was important that GOP members make their positions on bailouts known, as states join private industry in seeking federal government hand-outs.

She said Bopp wrote the resolution “because he wants to articulate our core principles now, not every four years when we have a presidential election.”

According to a Fox News report, Bush didn't like the idea of intervening in the market, but, said a spokesman, felt it was the necessary and responsible thing to do to prevent a collapse of the American economy."

However, the resolution described the bank bailout bill as ineffective and as a move toward socialistic approaches to economic struggles.

“The bailout bill has neither reversed the economic crisis nor protected the taxpayers, but rather has added $850 billion dollars to their tax bill and raised the national debt ceiling from $10 trillion to $11.3 trillion, which has the potential long-term effect of further weakening the economy,” the resolution stated.

It added: “(It) effectively nationalized the nation’s banking system, giving the United States non-voting warrants from participating financial institutions, and moving our free-market based economy another dangerous step closer toward socialism.”

The resolution indicated the federal government would have served taxpayers better if it had eliminated the capital gains tax, amended the Community Reinvestment Act and adapted a “hands-free” approach to the problem, “so that free-market forces can correct the market.”

Though neither Bush nor any specific member of Congress was mentioned by name, the White House and the Congress were also condemned in the resolution for other bailouts of companies such as American International Group, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and Bear Stearns.

Bopp and other resolution backers argued that “none of these bailouts have forestalled the economic recession, protected the jobs of American workers, made American companies more competitive or relieved the tax burden on American taxpayers, but rather have threatened to deepen the economic recession, and have increased the national debt and the burden faced by the American taxpayers.”

The resolution could be submitted in late January to the full RNC for a vote when it gathers to elect a new chair to guide the party for the next four years.

A Kansas Republican Party official who asked not to be named said he believed the resolution would have a better-than-even chance of passing if it were submitted to the entire RNC for a vote.

“The core principals expressed in the resolution would probably be supported by about two-thirds of the RNC delegates,” the official said.

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