No Blank Check Bail-Out --- Invest in Infrastructure, Communities, and People

Woah! Let’s slow down on this first $750 Billion blank check installment towards whatever the Executive Branch deems necessary.

George W. Bush’ Administration has a poor track record of using emergencies for terrible and costly policies – the Patriot Act rushed to vote during the Anthrax Scare a month after the September 2001 plane attacks, the Iraq Occupation which enriches military contractors and oil companies while increasing Al Qaida recruitment and distracting us from fighting the enemy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, and the de-populationing of New Orleans in the wake of the botched hurricane response, a major failure of Bush’ Homeland Security Mega-Department.

This first $750 Billion bail-out installment will cost me and each citizen $2000 and it will saddle our children and grandchildren with debt, higher interest rates, higher inflation, and a lower dollar worth.

It also significantly and further weakens Congress’ power over the Budget and Executive Oversight. I was already distressed by Congress’ weakened powers over the past sixty years, but the use of alarmism in the last eight years has greatly usurped Congressional power.

Congress should push for and get for our hundreds of billions of dollars these things:

• Consent and Oversight as to how the money is invested not spent;
• Equity or Warrants to buy bail-out equity at a good value;
• Strengthened Community Reinvestment Act (CRA);
• Revitalized and modernized Glass-Steagall Act;
• Demand-driven (consumers), not supply-side investments, such as
• Refinancing at-risk-of-foreclosure properties, including subsidized interest;
• Financing for worthy renters of foreclosed homes and buildings to buy the properties they rented as cooperatives, condominiums, or mutual housing associations, as long as they were responsible payers;
• Increased student loan financing and increased interest rate subsidies;
• Subsidized Financing for Microloans, Credit Unions, Economic Development Corporations;
• Subsidized financing for research, including energy, medicine, information, and space technology;
• Bridge loans with subsidized rates to Non-Profit Organizations, State and City Governments;
• Subsidized financing for infrastructure development and repair, mass transit, and affordable housing development and preservation;
• The financial institutions can earn profits from servicing these bonds, mortgages and loans, and will repay Congress;
• The financial institutions must keep jobs in the USA and not outsource their activities;
• All institutions receiving investment must blatantly report their lobbying activities;
• No Golden Parachutes for Executives of companies that Congress invests in.