Top 5 Reasons to Vote Against Wall Street's $700 Billion Bailout

Published on OurFuture.org (http://www.ourfuture.org)
Top 5 Reasons to Vote Against Wall Street's $700 Billion Bailout

By David Sirota

Created 09/28/2008 - 4:01pm
Summary:

Though the deal negotiated between congressional leaders and the White House is better than what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson originally proposed early last week, it remains an insulting atrocity, having omitted even basic aid to homeowners, bankruptcy reforms and any modicum of future financial industry regulation.

NOTE: David Sirota's views in this post are his own.

There's news this Sunday afternoon of a congressional deal to bailout Wall Street fat cats with $700 billion of taxpayer cash (you can read the draft legislation here [1]). Though the deal negotiated between congressional leaders and the White House is better than what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson originally proposed early last week, it remains an insulting atrocity, having omitted even basic aid to homeowners, bankruptcy reforms and any modicum of future financial industry regulation. Now, the New York Times [2] reports that the Democratic leadership may not have the votes to pass this bailout. So without further ado, here are the top 5 reasons (in no order) why every single member of Congress - Democrat and Republican - should vote this sucker down. Please feel free to copy and paste this post into an email to your congressperson. They are deciding right now - let them hear your voice.

1. BAILOUT'S INHERENT FISCAL INSANITY COULD MAKE PROBLEM WORSE
When an individual consumer uses a new credit card to pay off astounding debt from an old credit card, it's akin to check kiting, which is is illegal. Apparently, though, when the government does it, it's billed as Serious Public Policy. Because that's what this supposedly prudent bailout bill would do: Force taxpayers to borrow $700 billion from foreign banks to pay off the bad debt of Wall Street banks. During a crisis that is aimed at preventing interest rates from skyrocketing, nobody has been able to explain how adding almost a trillion dollars to the interest rate-exacerbating national debt would do anything other than undermine the plan's underlying objective. Worse, the U.S. Treasury Department itself [3] admits that the $700 billion number is "not based on any particular data point" - that is, they created it out of thin air because "We just wanted to choose a really large number." Slapping that amount of money onto the national credit card when our government can't even justify the amount is beyond absurd - it is insane.
It didn't have to be this way, of course. As I noted in my newspaper column this week [4], Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a temporary tax on millionaires to finance part of this bailout. Similarly, Blue Dog Democrats proposed [5] a future tax on financial firms if and when taxpayers lose cash on the deal. These proposals were discarded in favor of language asking the government to "submit a plan to Congress on how to recoup any losses," according to the Associated Press. Not only is that language toothless, but it opens up the possibility of a plan being submitted that says we should raise middle-class taxes or slash middle-class social programs to pay for Wall Street's misbehavior.

2. EXPERTS ON BOTH THE LEFT AND RIGHT SAY THIS BAILOUT COULD MAKE THINGS WORSE
Primum non nocere is the latin phrase for "first do no harm" - the priority principle for any EMT working on a sick patient. It should be the same priority for Congress at this moment - and a growing group of esteemed experts on both the Right and Left are insisting that this bailout bill could make things worse. Here's a review:

* The Washington Post [6] reported on Friday, almost 200 academic economists "have signed a petition organized by a University of Chicago professor objecting to the plan on the grounds that it could create perverse incentives, that it is too vague and that its long-run effects are unclear."
* NYU's Nouriel Roubini [7], the visionary who had been predicting this meltdown, says "The Treasury plan (even in its current version agreed with Congress) is very poorly conceived and does not contain many of the key elements of a sound and efficient and fair rescue plan."
* Harvard's Ken Rogoff [8], a Former Federal Rerserve and IMF official, insists that the prospect of this bailout is, unto itself, taking a manageable problem and making it into a more intense crisis. He says that credit is frozen primarily because banks want to avoid dealing with other banks that might drive a hard bargain, and instead would rather wait for free money from the government. Without the prospect of that free money, Rogoff suggests that credit would probably begin moving again, if slowly.
* Dean Baker of the Center on Economic and Policy Research [9] says that spending so much cash so quickly on such a poorly conceived plan could have the effect of making it impossible to fund economic stimulus that is the real way out of this mess. "Suppose the Paulson plan goes through," he writes. "It is virtually certain that the economy will weaken further and the number of foreclosures and people without jobs will continue to rise. This is the fallout from a collapsing housing bubble...When families respond to their loss of home equity by cutting back their consumption it will deepen the recession. In this context it might prove very important to have the resources needed to provide a substantial stimulus. [and] there is no doubt that this bailout will make further stimulus much more difficult to sell politically."

Meanwhile, it's not even close to clear that this is a problem that requires such an enormous response. As mentioned above, the Treasury Department admits it has absolutely no factual basis for requesting $700 billion - an amount equivalent to about 5 percent of our entire economy. Additionally, the Washington Post [10] reports that "Banks throughout the United States carried on with the business of making loans yesterday even as federal officials warned again that their industry is on the verge of collapse, suggesting that the overheated language on Capitol Hill may not reflect the reality on many Main Streets." Indeed, "many smaller banks said they were actually benefiting from the problems on Wall Street" and "even some of the nation's largest banks, which have pushed hard for a federal bailout, deny that the current situation is forcing them to reduce lending."
The questions, then, are simple: In the face of this bipartisan opposition from objective experts, why should a lawmaker instead believe the same Bush officials who helped create this crisis with their deregulation, the same Bush officials who just months ago said everything was AOK? Shouldn't there be almost complete unanimity among both objective and partisan observers before spending 5 percent of our entire economy after just one harried week of White House demands? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. It's time, as The Who said, that we "don't get fooled again."

3. THERE ARE CLEARLY BETTER AND SAFER ALTERNATIVES
The mantra throughout the week has been that America has "no choice" but to pass Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion giveaway - that, in effect, there are no alternatives. But that's an out-and-out lie - one with a motive: Making it seem as if the only thing we can do is hand the keys to the federal treasury over to both parties' corporate campaign contributors.
The truth is, there are a number of alternatives. Here are just a few:

* In the Washington Post last week, Galbraith outlined a multi-pronged plan [11] shoring up and expanding the FDIC, creating a Home Owners Loan Corporation, resurrecting Nixon's federal revenue sharing, and taxing stock transactions (a tax that would fall mostly on speculators) to finance the whole deal.
* The Service Employees International Union [12] has drafted a plan based around a massive investment in public services and national health care, and regulatory reforms preventing foreclosures and forcing banks to renegotiate the predatory terms of their bad mortgages.
* For those in the mindless, zombie-ish "someone has to do something, so we have to do what the White House says!" camp, consider the possibility that you are under the spell of the same kind of White House fear that led us to invade Iraq because of Saddam's supposed WMD. Consider, perhaps, that there may not even be a compelling basis for doing anything just yet (or at least not anything nearly so huge), and that the whole reason there is this urgent push right now has nothing to do with the financial situation, and everything to do with creating the political dynamic to pass a wasteful giveaway - one that couldn't be passed otherwise without a sense of emergency. And ask yourself why you would listen to this White House instead of listening to those experts who have been predicting this crisis and are now advising against this bailout - experts like CEPR's Baker. In two separate posts (here [13] and here [14]), he says that letting the problem play out could be the best path, because Treasury and the Fed may already have the tools they need. Following this path, the worst thing that happens is "The Fed and Treasury will have to step in and take over the banks [which] is exactly what many economists argue should happen anyhow," Baker writes. "So the outcome of the worst case scenario is a really frightening day in which the whole world financial system is shaken to its core, followed by a government takeover of the banks. Eventually the government straightens out the books and sells them off again. But the real threat here is not to the economy, it is to the banks."
* Then there is the idea of simply taking the $700 billion and simply give it to struggling homeowners to help them pay off part of their mortgages. This hasn't even been discussed but the thought experiment it involves is important to understanding why there is, indeed, an alternative to the Paulson plan. If the root of this problem is people not being able to pay off their mortgages, and those defaults then devaluing banks' mortgage-backed assets, then simply helping people pay their mortgages would preserve the value of the mortgage-backed assets and recharge the market with liquidity. That would be a bottom-up solution helping the mass public, rather than a top-down move helping only financial industry executives.

On this latter proposal, some may argue that giving any relief to homeowners is "unfair" in that those homeowners created their problems, so why should taxpayers have to help them? But then, is helping homeowners any less fair than simply giving all the money away to Wall Street, no strings attached? I'd say no - and helping homeowners also serves a second purpose: namely, keeping people in their homes, which not only helps them, but helps an entire neighborhood (as any homeowner knows, nearby properties can be devalued when foreclosures hit).

4. ANY INCUMBENT VOTING FOR THIS PUTS THEMSELVES AT RISK OF BEING THROWN OUT OF OFFICE
As a preface, let me state that I think we live in a country where politicians too often listen to their donors and to the Establishment rather than their constituents, not the other way around. America is a country where our leaders dishonestly invoke the concepts of "Statesmanship" and "Seriousness" and their supposed hatred of "pandering" to justify ignoring what the public wants (as if giving the public what it wants is somehow not the objective of a democratic republic). So, in short, I don't think there's anything wrong with this bill being "politicized" by coming down the pike right before an election - in fact, I think it's a good thing because the election - and the fear of being thrown out of office forces our politicians to at least consider what the public wants. I mean, really - would we rather have this decision made after the election, when the public can be completely ignored?
Polls overwhelmingly show a public that sees voting for this bill as an act of economic treason whereby the bipartisan Washington elite robs taxpayer cash to give their campaign contributors a trillion-dollar gift. As just two of many examples, Bloomberg News' poll [15] shows "decisive" opposition to the bailout proposal, and Rasmussen [16] reports that their surveys show "the more voters learn about the proposed $700 billion federal bailout plan for the U.S. economy, the more they donʼt like it." Put another way, this bailout proposal has unified both the Right and Left sides of the populist uprising that I described in my new book [17] and that is now even more angry than ever.
Any sitting officeholder that votes for this - whether a Democrat or a Republican - should expect to get crushed under a wave of populist-themed attacks from their opponents. We've already seen it start. In Oregon, Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley (D) is airing scathing television ads [18] hammering Republican incumbent Gordon Smith for potentially supporting the deal. Similarly, this morning on Meet the Press, we saw Republican Senate challenger Bob Schaffer (CO) dishonestly papering over his own votes for deregulation and ripping into his opponent Rep. Mark Udall (D) for potentially supporting the deal. Incumbents, get ready for that kind of election-changing heat in your face if you vote "yes."
This, by the way, could play out in the presidential contest. Barack Obama has been taking the advice of the Wall Street insiders in his campaign in endorsing this bailout. McCain has endorsed the vague outline, but he may ultimately back off once he sees the details, allowing him to then run the last month of the campaign as the economic populist in the race. I'm not saying it would work, considering McCain's 26-year record of supporting the deregulatory agenda that created this crisis. But such a move could end up help him flank Obama on the defining economic issues of the race.

5. CORRUPTION AND SLEAZE ARE SWIRLING AROUND THESE BAILOUTS - AND AMERICA KNOWS IT
The amount of brazen corruption and conflicts of interest swirling around this deal is odious, even by Washington's standards - and polls suggest the public inherently understands that. Consider these choice nuggets:

* Warren Buffett [19] is simultaneously advising Obama to support the deal, while he himself is investing in the company that stands to make the most off the deal.
* McCain's campaign [20] is run by lobbyists from the companies that stand to make a killing off a no-strings government bailout.
* The New York Times [21] reports that the person advising Paulson and Bernanke on the AIG bailout was the CEO of Goldman Sachs - a company with a $20 billion stake in AIG.
* The Obama campaign's top spokesman pushing this deal is none other than Roger Altman, who Bloomberg News [22] reports is simultaneously "advising a group of investors who are trying to prevent their shares from being diluted in the U.S. takeover of American International Group Inc." - that is, who have a direct financial interest in the current iteration of the bailout.

Add to this the fact that the negotiations over this bill have been largely conducted in secret, and you have one of the most sleazy heists in American history.
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If this bill passes, it will be a profound referendum on the dominance of money over democracy in America. That - and that alone - would be the only thing an objective observer could take away from the whole thing.
Money will have compelled politicians to not only vote for substantively dangerous policy, but vote for that policy even at their own clear electoral peril. Such a vote will confirm that the only people these politicians believe they are responsible for representing are are the fat-cat recipients of the $700 billion - the same fat cats who underwrite their political campaigns, the same fat-cats who engineered this crisis, and want to keep profiteering off it. Any lawmaker who takes that position is selling out the country, as is any issue-based political non-profit group - liberal or conservative - that uses its resources to defend a "yes" vote rather than demand a "no" vote. This is a bill that forces taxpayers to absorb all of the pain, and Wall Street executives to reap all of the gain. It doesn't even force the corporate executives (much less the government leaders) culpable in this free fall to step down - it lets them stay fat and happy in their corner office suites in Manhattan.
Even if they believe that something must be done right now, lawmakers should still vote no on this specific bill, and force one of the very prudent alternatives to the forefront. They shouldn't just vote no on Paulson's proposal - they should vote hell no. Our economy's future depends on it.

Campaign For America's Future
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Links:
[1] http://www.cspan.org/pdf/marketsbill_draft.pdf
[2] http://timesfreepress.com/news/2008/sep/28/bailout-breakthrough-deal-cut-bailout-plan/
[3] http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/09/23/bailout-paulson-congress-biz-beltway-cx_jz_bw_0923bailout.html
[4] http://www.creators.com/opinion/david-sirota/back-in-the-u-s-s-r.html
[5] http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0908/Blue_Dogs_seek_recoupment_provision_in_Wall_Street_bailout_package.html
[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092504531.html
[7] http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253762/rge_conference_call_on_the_economic_and_financial_outlookand_why_the_treasury_tarp_bailout_is_flawed
[8] http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/26/is_the_crisis_real/
[9] http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/26/bailing_on_the_bailout_or_is_i/
[10] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092504155.html
[11] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092403033.html
[12] http://blogs.seiu.org/blogs/2008/09/26/take-a-deep-breath-our-economic-recovery-plan/
[13] http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/28/financial_meltdown_the_day_aft/
[14] http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/26/bailing_on_the_bailout_or_is_i/
[15] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aYK_5_fV5D4M&refer=home
[16] http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/opposition_to_bailout_plan_grows_but_still_expected_to_pass
[17] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0307395634?tag=sirotablog-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0307395634&adidYG4T2ZJJAZXD5JM0YF&
[18] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBy-5MuwP0Y
[19] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/questioning-warren-buffet_b_129112.html
[20] http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/09/9753_mccain_campaign_lobbyists_wall_street_aig.html
[21] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/business/28melt.html
[22] http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008093927/bloomberg-news-aides-both-presidential-candidates-demand-passage-paulsons-bail

Ask tough questions about the bailout

David Cay Johnston was an economics/tax reporter for the Times. This piece was posted on a forum for journalists. Contradicting most of what we've been told about the credit situation, that he says is not a crisis, Johnston exhorts his fellow reporters to be skeptical and "check it out" instead of making the mistake they made in reporting the Administration's case for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act.

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13611

Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 9/23/2008
Title: Ask tough questions about the bailout
Posted By: Jim Romenesko

From DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Journalists, start your skepticism.

In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don't repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don't assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don't assume there is a case just because officials say there is.

The coverage of the Paulson plan focuses on the edges, on the details. The focus should be on the premise. And be skeptical of what gullible Congressional leaders, most of them up before the voters in a few weeks, say after being given a closed-door meeting on supposed horrors.

The Administration has scared the markets and some key legislative leaders, but it has not laid out a coherent, specific and compelling need for this enormous proposal, which is the equivalent of a one-time 55 percent income tax surcharge. (Instead the money will be borrowed, so ask from whom and how this much can be raised so quickly if the credit markets are nearly seized up with fear.)

Ask this question -- are the credit markets really about to seize up?

If they are then lots of business owners should be eager to tell how their bank is calling their 90-day revolving loans, rejecting new loans and demanding more cash on deposit. I called businessmen I know yesterday and not one of them reported such problems. Indeed, Citibank offered yesterday to lend me tens of thousands of dollars on my signature at 2.99 percent, well below the nearly 5 percent inflation rate. That offer came after I said no last week to a 4.99 percent loan.

If the problem is toxic mortgages then how come they are still being offered all over the Internet? On the main page AOL generates for me there is an ad for a 1.9% loan (which means you pay that interest rate and the rest of the interest is added to your balance due.) Why oh why or why would taxpayers be bailing out banks that are continuing to sell these toxic loans?

How does the proposal help Joe and Mary Sixpack who can afford their current monthly payment, but not the increased interest rate that has been or soon will take effect? Every day bankers work out loans with customers -- so why are taxpayers being asked to act when banks are largely on strike, refusing to negotiate revised deals with many loan customers?

How about interviewing small landlords who were drawn into these toxic loans. Are banks negotiating with them? If not it means more foreclosures and renters who had nothing to do with this being evicted. Ask why banks are refusing (landlords I spoke to said they are) to negotiate with small landlords.

What steps are being taken to take back bonuses, fees and other compensation from the folks who got rich selling toxic mortgages and illiquid investments that Secretary Paulsen claims are threatening the whole system.

How will adding $700 billion to the national debt ease strains on the credit markets?

As of now we are, as a group, behaving just as we did the last two times the administration sought to rush through a hastily thought out, ill-conceived plan. Why in the world are we being so gullible and naive? whatever happened to the core value of journalism -- check it out?

The questioning on the Sunday talk shows was all softball. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, shame on your anchors and roundtable regulars all for engaging in lightweight faux journalism. This passivity, superficiality and gullibility was at its worse Monday night on NBC in the banter between anchor Brian Williams and a CNBC correspondent with its utter lack of skepticism.


Here are some question to ask:

Do we need a bailout of American and foreign banks? Show us in detail the reasons for this, and the numbers: make the case.

Is there a market solution to this? If so, why impose a government solution? If not what does that tell us about our entire economic theory?


Is there a less expensive solution?

How do we know this will not just be a downpayment on a much bigger
bailout?

Is there a solution that provides direct help to those who took out these loans, rather than those who sold them?

If AIG and others are too big to fail, what does that tell us about government anti-trust policy and regulatory policy and inaction?

Why have both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley made clear that they want IN on this deal? Get skeptical and ask the basic questions -- who benefits, how much and what makes this plan so attractive that Goldman and MS want to participate? Ditto for GE. That they are others want to be included should prompt a great deal of skeptical questioning.

How does banning short selling of the stocks of 900 companies help the markets? (The markets are heavily biased toward the sell side, so why constrain the shorts, who often turn out to be right about stocks whose share prices has been artificially inflated.)

How is banning short selling of this growing list of companies show a commitment to "free markets," a stated goal of this and a long lost of previous administrations?

During this short selling ban, why are there no parallel controls on insiders getting out of their positions?

Reporters, hit the streets and telephones to ask business owners if their credit lines have been frozen. Look at swings in the stock market and put the recent swings in perspective.

Look on the Internet and see all of the ads for the very toxic mortgages that are supposedly at the core of this mess. Ask why are 1.9% loans (in which you pay that in cash and the rest of the interest is added to your mortgage balance) still being sold? Find out who continues to buy these loans.

Lets do our job -- be skeptical and ask the core questions, not the detailed ones around the edges.

Cindy for Congress: We are Being Robbed!; A Progressive Response to Wall St..

Cindy Sheehan for Congress demands that NOT ONE of our tax dollars be used to bail out Wall Street corporate pirates.

Cindy Sheehan for Congress demands a personal bottom-up bail out plan. The Bush crime family plan would cost each and every American (regardless of political party) over 2300.00 to help rescue an irresponsible and greedy industry that is failing because of unregulated speculation and predatory lending and trading practices.

This is our money, people, and if we don't speak up loudly to have our voices heard, we are participating in the biggest robbery in American history. We may as well be driving the get-away car. A crime of historic proportions is about to be perpetrated that you know will go unpunished by the complicit Democrats. The evidence is clear: this incestuous corporate/government co-operation throws it in our face once again that the establishment elite are in it together -- against We the People. Nancy Pelosi (D-SF) is not the only Congress member that receives money from these industries or is invested in these same industries, in a clear conflict of interest!

It is not time for a Bi-partisan solution since we know the two party monopoly is only there to protect itself and its cronies. NO, the time is now for a NON-partisan people's revolution to get to the root of the problem, not throw OUR money at it.

Cindy for Congress is calling for a demonstration tomorrow (9/25) in San Francisco in front of the Federal Reserve Bank
Where: 101 Market St (Corner of Market and Spear)
When: 4 pm to ?

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Cindy for Congress and a Progressive Response to the Financial Crisis

There are four human rights that Cindy for Congress believes are basic to everyone, everywhere:

Peace: Not just the absence of war, but the absence of an economy that is always preparing for war. Not just the absence of violence, but the importance of solving problems without the use, or the threat of violence. Protection of the human right to not be "bombed to the stone ages" or not to be tortured for seeming barbaric sport, are rights that are of paramount importance.

Security: The importance of a person's right to not only be physically secure, but also secure from ones own government. Why is it "hacking" when a private person breaks into another's email, but "National Security" when our government does it? The only reasonable usage for a military is to defend our nation from attack and in case of natural disasters: not to be over-extended in immoral foreign wars of aggression to be killed or kill innocent people.

Prosperity: This is the right to education, health care, housing, healthy food, clean water and a job that pays living wages. Where our retirement is provided for and our retirement accounts can't be raped and pillaged by government or Wall Street.

Environmental sustainability: A world where fossil fuels are not needed and the capitalist polluters use their labor and profits to clean up the environment that they filthied. A world where clean and renewable sources of energy are the norm rather than the exception. A world where clean and green companies get the tax incentives and oil companies get the shaft that they so richly deserve.

Cindy for Congress believes that every individual in the world deserves these four fundamental necessities. We also believe that the parasite class is sucking the life out of our communities and families and the recent socio-economic collapse is the result of decades of a consolidation of wealth and power that is culminating in the bankrupting of our nation to benefit this parasite class and plunge working families even farther into a financial morass.

If we are to be intellectually honest with ourselves we know that the Democratic/Republican monopoly in our political milieu are co-equally responsible for the mess and that the solution is not to bail out the finance industry, but to build protections into our economy for we citizens that unknowingly or reluctantly support the rescues and profitization of the parasites with our labor and taxes.

Cindy for Congress calls for an indefinite moratorium on mortgage foreclosures and then reorganization or renegotiation of mortgages after home prices have adjusted to appropriate and reasonable levels with federal government support.

Cindy for Congress calls for an indefinite extension on food stamp and unemployment benefits as an economic and social safety net for the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters.

Cindy for Congress calls for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and the downsizing of our military industrial complex to save trillions of dollars per year.

Cindy for Congress calls for easing bankruptcy laws for consumers that also discourage usurious interest rates and predatory credit practices.

Cindy for Congress calls for state and federal jobs programs that put people to work rebuilding our rotting infrastructure and cleaning up our fragile environment.

Cindy for Congress calls for lobbyist money to be completely eliminated from Capitol Hill. Both major party presidential and Congressional candidates receive millions of dollars from financial conglomerates. Public financing of campaigns will level the playing field and force our legislators to be responsive to citizen constituencies. Nancy Pelosi owns 500,000 dollars of stock in AIG and AIG is receiving 85 billion dollars in corporate welfare thanks to our hard earned tax dollars. How is that not a distinct conflict of interest?

Cindy for Congress calls for the re-institution of the Glass-Steagall Act that was enacted during the Great Depression to prevent financial institutions from merging causing the crisis we are in today when they fail. Nancy Pelosi was a major supporter of repealing this vital act in 1999. Cindy for Congress calls for other regulatory measures that would prevent such a crisis in the future.

Cindy for Congress calls for the protection of Social Security and demands that our retirement safety net not be placed into the hands of bankers or Wall Street. The privatization of Social Security is a likely recipe for disaster.

Cindy for Congress demands that any company that gets "bailed-out" by our tax dollars (on a case by case basis and only after a citizen's review) have a strict repayment schedule and a major reduction in CEO salaries, bonuses and "Golden Hand Shakes." No blank checks or unregulated bailouts from the criminal Bush regime. A commission made up of experts, members of Labor and taxpayers must be instituted as an oversight committee on what is really a necessary restructuring of greedily destructive Capitalism.

Cindy for Congress demands that this reverse Robin Hood affect (robbing from the poor to give to the rich) end immediately.
Call your Congress person to urge a rejection of BushCo's "bail-out" plan that is good for crony-Capitalism but bad for everyone else.

Bring your past-due mortgage bills.
Bring your past-due rent or utility bills.
Bring your student loan and medical bills.
Bring your credit card bills with usurious interest rates and immoral fee structures.
Bring YOUR BILLS to send to Nancy Pelosi in DC so we can demand that WE THE PEOPLE be bailed out. No "stimulus" plans, but a bottom up, effective approach. (See: Cindy Sheehan for Congress and a Progressive Response to the Economic Crisis).

Bring your Monopoly or other play money that we can burn to symbolize our government's burning of its fiat currency in wholly inappropriate response to the economy and to show our opposition to the apparent onset of a hyper-inflation cycle.

Above all, bring your righteous and very appropriate anger.

What this government is planning now is the final collapse of our socio-economic system and WE CANNOT ALLOW THEM TO GET AWAY WITH IT this time!

This is the beginning of WE THE PEOPLE finally standing up and saying:
"Hell, no."
"Not with my money."
"Not with my child's future."
"NOT WITH MY CONSENT!"
Please call the campaign office for more info: 415-621-5027
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Cindy for Congress is also developing an online campaign to send our personal bail out bills to Congress. Stay tuned for more info!