$700,000,000,000* is roughly 50% of the individual income tax collected by the U.S. in 2006. (I couldn't find 2007 numbers.)
So here's my alternative plan for bailing out the economy: Instead of giving the assholes that got us into this mess that $700,000,000,000, why doesn't the Govt cut refund checks equal to 50% of the individual income taxes each of us paid for 2007? I don't know about you guys, but for me, 50% of my individual income tax isn't small potatoes.
A large chunk of that would go to paying down debt. Another large chunk of that would go into my savings account - injecting my bank with the additional liquidity they claim they so badly need. Those homeowners having trouble paying for their mortgage would have a cash infusion that - if they actually are responsible - would go a long way to avoiding foreclosure. Less foreclosures = good for businesses with too many mortgage-backed securities and the housing market. Giving the money directly back to the people who sent it into the Govt in the first place strikes me as a better idea than throwing tons of cash at a crew of executives who made really stupid decisions and are now trying to avoid any consequences for it. And it's more fair, since it's not screwing over renters and people who lived within their budget rather than going out and buying a McMansion on a liar-loan - everyone gets money back, instead of giving money to just the people who couldn't resist doing dumb shit.
Even if a certain percentage of people in financial trouble turn around and blow the windfall on new rims, video games and weed, rather than avoiding foreclosure or paying their bills? They may end up losing their homes anyway, but they'd totally deserve it, and spending all that money still helps the economy.
I don't think my plan is any dumber than giving a bunch of failing companies a shit-ton of cash with no oversight. Instead of giving all of our money to people who have already demonstrated they're too stupid or too corrupt to use it wisely, and just hoping we see the benefits down the line, give the money to us, and we can decide which companies we want to save by investing in them through savings, purchases, and well, actual investing.
* Saying 'billion' just doesn't have the same impact that that insane line of zeroes does. Billion is only two syllables. Typing out enough zeroes to make a billion takes counting up to 11 while I hit the 0 key.
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3 comments:
Wow...your idea is way better than what is being proposed right now. I kind of hope they decide to do something more like that. Especially since there are so many people who are against the bailout plan to begin with...because it's dumb! And I don't know about you, but I kind of don't want our country to be even more indebted to other countries. Who thought that would be a good idea? Because it's not! They should either let things play our on their own, or do something FOR the people, not for big businesses.
Looks like we don't have to worry about it anyways (or at least this instance of it) because it didn't get passed!
Yeah... for now. My guess is that now that the number is already out there they're gonna convince themselves to spend that eventually regardless of the general public's wishes. The only question is how fast they do it, and how many of them get their asses handed to them in the general election for going along with it.
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