Why I'm glad the bailout plan failed

--I have a problem with rewarding some of the richest people in the country for their incompetence, especially after the government has already rewarded them with massive income tax breaks.

--Many are arguing that spending $700 billion on this would force the government to make serious cutbacks in other areas. This would lead to the economic downturn the bailout is supposed to prevent.

-- This is exactly the same thing as an individual using a new credit card to pay off the debt of a previous card. (We would be borrowing $700 billion from foreign banks to pay off the bad debts of Wall Street banks.)

--The bursting housing bubble is resulting in a downtown in consumption due to the loss of an individual's home equity which deepens the current recession. The bailout will mean the government will not have the resources to stimulate the economy out of the recession.

--Larger banks away from Wall Street deny the current situation is forcing them to reduce lending, mean this is strictly a Wall Street problem, not a Main Street problem.

--Basically the plan would turn the keys of the U.S. Treasury Department over to the major contributors to both political parties.

--You could fix the entire situation with a stock transactions tax, bringing back President Nixon's revenue sharing plan and expanding the FDIC.

--The Service Employees International Union has come up with an interesting concept: investing in public services and national health care and instituting reforms that would prevent foreclosures and force banks to renegotiate their most predatory loans.

--Frankly, I don't trust the same person who said we had to rush to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destructions when he know says we have to rush headlong and accept his plan without really studying it. Besides there are experts who say Bush's
Doomsday scenario is not nearly as bad as he paints it.

--If this problem really has been caused because people are unable to pay their mortgages, as Bush claims, then why not give people $700 million to pay off their mortgages? This would help the public, not just financial executives, and recharge the entire housing market. I know, there are those who said these homeowners brought these problems on themselves and now must suffer the consequences of their indulgences. But why is that any less fair than just just handing the money over to Wall Street with no strings attached? A plan like this could not only keep people in their homes but help preserve entire neighborhoods (the value of adjoining homes decrease when homes in that neighborhood are foreclosed upon).

--The public doesn't want this plan to pass. That much has been made clear. And for once, I'm glad these representatives listened to their constituents and not just their campaign contributors.

--It's a plan that puts all the pain on American taxpayers and all the gain on the Wall Street fat cats whose greed caused these problems in the first place.