Bush gets cheers despite bailout talk

ALEXANDRIA — Hun-dreds of people waved and cheered at George W. Bush’s motorcade in Alexandria on Monday, even though some of the onlookers said they question the president’s plan to revive the economy by using taxpayer money to bail out the financial sector.
The president spent over an hour in private with central Louisiana employers, in a downtown meeting at the Chamber of Commerce. He was greeted at the airport by busloads of cheering school children, and hundreds of office workers took an afternoon break to line up along his motorcade’s route through town.
“I saw him plain as day, and he sure waved back at me,” said Mike Deville, after seeing the president through his limousine window.
Deville was excited to see the president but voiced doubts about the plan, backed by Bush and congressional leaders, to pump hundreds of billions of government dollars into financial institutions.
“I’m behind everything he does, but I wasn’t excited about that,” said Deville, an Alexandria communications worker. “They had to do something, though.”
Bush’s visit was billed as a way for him to gauge the health of the economy in America’s heartland. He told reporters after the Alexandria meeting that community banks — such as one in central Louisiana — are strong, and they should not be lumped in with giant financial institutions that have gone under.
“I have heard that people’s attitudes are beginning to change from a period of intense concerns — I would call it near panic — to being more relaxed,” Bush told reporters after the meeting at the Central Louisiana Chamber of Commerce.
On the street outside, Jenny Jenkins, said the economic downturn “hasn’t affected us yet” in central Louisiana. However, she wondered why huge financial institutions are getting billions in government dollars.
“What about us? What about our bailout? I’m struggling,” said Jenkins, a paralegal.
Several people wondered whether the bailout money would benefit powerful Wall Street figures who deserve blame for the financial freeze-up.
“I’m afraid that some of that money’s going to go to the wrong hands,” said Richard Emanus, building operator at a downtown office tower. “Some big CEO’s going to get a nice bailout of his own.”
Jenkins said she didn’t blame the president or Congress for the financial mess.
“I don’t really blame anybody except the greedy people who are making millions, and who expect to be helped out,” she said.
Sherrie James, a city employee, said she feared a bailout would only encourage financiers to take further extreme risks, in expectation that government will come to the rescue if they lose money.
“I don’t think it’s going to help,” she said. “You bail them out once, you’ll have to bail them out again.”
Bush was greeted at the airport by Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy, Pineville Mayor Clarence Fields and recently re-elected U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman.
A notable no-show was Gov. Bobby Jindal, a fellow Republican who once worked in the Bush administration. Jindal said he didn’t attend the president’s visit because of a scheduling conflict: town hall meetings in Natchitoches and Rosepine, a tiny Vernon Parish town.
“We didn’t find out about the trip until fairly late last week,” Jindal said. “We’d already committed to doing some town hall meetings. I didn’t want to have to cancel those town hall meetings. We’d already asked local folks to invite people.”