The $700 BILLION DOLLAR ROBBERY( er, "Bailout")

This day will go down in infamy. I can't let it pass without registering my outrage at how 300 million americans are being forced to stand by and watch a handful of men open the doors to the vault and hand over the treasury to the thieves.

What this has come down to reminds me of when I'd come home with a new purchase and "slyly" (I thought) tell my husband what a great deal it was, how it WAS going to cost me (and name some highly exaggerated figure) BUT I got it for ONLY (some greatly diminished figure), and how much money I had in effect just saved him. HE never fell for it, but this Congress HAS.

Take a second or two... and think about how much $700 billion really is. It's seven hundred thousand million dollars! $700,000,000,000.00. And what will U.S. taxpayers like you and I get in return? Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Increasing of taxes is a contentious, major, voting issue in this election, yet exactly how do americans think our soon to be 11.3 TRiLLION DOLLAR DEBT is to be paid! Be afraid, be very afraid.

The current, proposed bill, from what little we have learned, has no plans for new regulations or oversights to help avoid this kind of crisis in the future, no public interest givebacks to help the people whose homes are in the hands of the banks, and perhaps most shockingly of all, we will get absolutely no share in the profits if these fallen-from-grace financial giants bounce back... even though we are now assuming a great deal of the risk. In quoting Greg McCoach of Energy and Capitol, this is worse than a bad deal for us. In fact, it isn't even a deal!

The NYTimes reports "Under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which is expected to come to a vote in the House today, the Treasury Department gets $250 billion immediately to start buying up banks’ and other financial institutions’ least valuable mortgages and complex financial instruments backed by those mortgages. If needed, an additional $100 billion is available at the discretion of the president, and a final $350 billion is on the table, unless Congress resolves to take it back. The president has the authority to veto such a resolution (!!!).

Well on that note, I must get in my morning constitutional walk or go positively crazy!