What Would You Do With $700 Billion?
The bailout is dead. Long Live the Bailout! H.R.3997 – Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, was voted down in the House of Representatives this afternoon.
When just about all of Congress realizes something is a BAD IDEA, even if some of them think its a necessary BAD IDEA, then you know it is a bad idea. Why are we even considering throwing good money after bad, now that even Wall Street has had to acknowledge that the housing bubble mortgage fraud securities were a bad idea. For years, they profited by driving up the cost of housing for all Americans. Under the marketing banner of making home ownership affordable for more people, they made it actually affordable for fewer.
Why should anyone help out someone who did that? Because if we don’t give them more of our money to lend us, they won’t lend us any more money? They made loans to people they knew couldn’t afford to pay them back, so now they won’t loan money to people who can? Is this really behavior that should be rewarded?
If we need government spending to kick us out of recession, isn’t there a better way to do this than by buying up bad loans in the hope that they will somehow turn good and get us our money back? Somebody out there still has the blueprints for the Yugo. Let’s bring that back.
Wouldn’t it be better to put that money into building something we can use? Wouldn’t investing in infrastructure be better than investing in an already fallen house of cards?
John McCain proposed a $300 million battery development contest. Pocket change compared to what he’s willing to spend to protect overpaid shell game perpetrators. Guess he really doesn’t understand economics. Obama thinks if you add in caps on executive compensation and help some people stay in homes they never should have bought in the first place that makes it a good deal. Can’t say I think much of his grasp of economics either.
If the government is to take our money and redistribute it, it should be for the things we know need to be done but that on an individual level always seem to take a back seat to getting this month’s bills paid. Like energy technology that gets us off of petroleum addiction and cleans up our air and water. One of the obstacles to large-scale solar and wind power is building the infrastructure to get big empty spaces hooked up to the power grid. Battery costs still make hybrid and electric cars cost 20-25% more than gasoline models.
What could we do with an extra $700 billion in education? This country became great on the force of ingenuity. There was no problem that couldn’t be solved by a combination of brains and hard work. How did we let that go? Where did the idea that being smarter than the average bear was evil come from?
Why does even your average Congressman think this bailout is a bad idea? Because we’ll never have anything to show for our money!
What would you do with $700 billion? Call or write your representatives, and tell them what you expect to get for it.