My father, who was born in 1924 and died nine years ago, often told me a story about a group of somber looking black-suited men who delivered foreclosure papers to his grandfather's farmhouse. The monthly mortgage payment was three dollars, and it was months overdue. My father was five or six years old, but he never forgot that day, nor the day his aging pet pony was shot because there was no corn or hay to feed him.

"You couldn't buy a job," my dad would say, describing the social uproar and lack of employment during the Great Depression. His experiences during those years marked him. My father's keen insight of economics, the fear and greed that move markets and the importance of giving, saving and investing have never left me.

Life for our family was never about amassing large amounts of money, power or material goods. It was, and still is, about working diligently, taking good care of the family, discovering truth and seeking solutions to make things better for the next generation.

And that's another reason why I'm running for Congress.

I spent some time last week listening to testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee as they were considering using our taxpayer money as another backstop to shore up losses to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. There were moments when Secretary of the Treasury was talking that I felt I was listening to Orwellian double speak.

Here's an excerpt from the spoken testimony of Sec. Paulson where he is explaining the potential bail out, or additional "back up" money for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"This is a back up facility, uhh hopefully it would never be used. And if you want to maximize the chance that it will ever be used, you would have maximum authority for a temporary period of time. . . All I can do is tell you in my judgment, what I believe is best for providing stability . . for providing confidence and minimizing the chance that it would be used and minimizing the chance that a, . . . that people will lose confidence and lose the back up facility."

Hmmm. The Secretary of the Treasury is saying that he wants authority for 18 months to use whatever amount of tax payer dollars he wants to use - and not have to ask Congress for it. He says that not having a specified amount of money will mean that they probably won't use it and it will inject "confidence" into the financial system.

If this is an example of the "solid, number- based reasoning" that's running things, then no wonder we're in such a mess. And it's more than a "mental recession, Senator Graham.

Saturday's St. Petersburg Times reported 23,100 job losses over the past year in Tampa Bay.

According to McClatchy newspapers, commercial bankruptcies in the U.S. are up 45% from last year.

Foreclosures are on the increase, and some communities, like the one described on Bill Moyers Journal in Ohio, are being destroyed.

Florida is in the top ten for foreclosures.

Jobs are harder to find, food and fuel prices are rising, wages haven't kept up and savings rates are negative. Years of non-regulation have taken a toll. Greed, power and usury make the rules, while regular hard working Americans suffer.

America is in a moral and economic crisis and the answer is not to "go shopping." Instead of working for corporate interests, let's have a Congress who will rationally evaluate where we are, how we got here and where we want to go. This may not be easy, but we need not be afraid. I believe we can be open, honest and willing to forge new vision and new strategies of energy, health and education. We are ripe for a renewal of moral reasoning and a shedding of the greed, lies and false materialistic paradigms that have brought us to these troubling times.

We are in this together. And we can make this world a better place for the children. Let's start tomorrow by walking/biking instead of driving, conserving instead of wasting, sharing instead of hording, giving instead of receiving and talking instead of watching TV.

Here's a little inspiration.