Dear Senator Bayh:

It's been a while since I wrote. Things settled down after Countrywide Mortgage froze my home equity line. That money represented the funds I had planned on tapping to pay that April 15 bill that more or less keeps your business going. That was one of the reasons I thought you might be interested in what's going on out here far from D.C.

Let's just say other arrangements were made.

Since I last wrote the Countrywide "brand" has disappeared and Bank of America has taken over. Your co-workers made that happen. It's probably good that Countrywide is gone given all the mortgage fraud they funded, but they sure aren't forgotten. Mortgage fraud is behind a lot of the boarded buildings across our state. I understand that the old owners of Countrywide are making hay out of this current foreclosure mess. Capitalism - you can't beat it!

I'm getting lots of mail from Bank of America. They seem like a friendly enough group. That's nice since when you are too big to fail you certainly don't have to be friendly.

What a costly bad idea "too big to fail" turned out to be. Maybe that "ways and means" department you have should hire some consultants to rethink that whole approach.

On the issue of my equity line - Countrywide never did change my statements. To the naked eye my home equity line limit is still stated at the original amount agreed upon. But I don't think that little oversight would allow me to write a check on those funds. Bank of America is printing the wrong amount on my statement also. But "too big to fail" allows a lot of leeway when it comes to competency and customer service.

I'm looking forward to the day Bank of America and I can part company.

After writing to you I was disappointed when I didn't hear back from your office. Since I work in the real estate industry, I really think I have some insight into this mortgage fraud. And I thought you should know how some banks are treating the taxpayers who are funding the bank bailout. I spent a lot of time on my letter. It was pretty good - worth someone's read.

If the banks are to fund the real estate recovery, well, let's just agree that this will be a problem for the next generation. You may not be getting that word from your staff, but there's a lot of bank misbehaving going on outside the beltway.

I thought with the size of your staff and the extent of the technology at your disposal that some kind of automated acknowledgment of my letter was appropriate and doable.

I was wrong.

But let me tell you the effect of your silence. It temps me to disengage - to think and plan and act only for my own self interest and that of my family. I don't like to waste my time.

I heard a chilling item on the radio last night. It was your colleague Senator Dick Durbin from neighboring Illinois speaking about the bank lobby on Capitol Hill. These are the very folks who may be seated waiting for you in your Senate office foyer just as I am writing this.

"Banks are the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill and frankly they own the place."

NPR reports that the banking lobby spent 42 million dollars on Capitol Hill in the first quarter of this year.

If the banks rule absolute, and Congress is incapable of bringing some fairness to lending, the fact is our economy will contract.

Folks vote with their feet. Investors think twice, risk takers pull back. If the game is so obviously rigged then people choose not to play.

I think that the economists are stunned at how fast Americans have changed their spending habits. If the banks are left undisciplined, if they are to call all the shots, well, folks may find other ways of doing business. The result will be an economy that contracts. And when it comes to our national economy - smaller is not better.