Trickle down economic rescue? Tell them that won't fly. (The JEC meets Wed.--links)

[clear eye]

The Congressional Joint Economic Committee meets on Wednesday to craft the actual bill that will go to Congress for approval. The key players are the co-chairs of the Committee--Sen. Charles Schumer-NY, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney-NY. Sen. Obama is not on it. Everyone else gets to vote on the bill, but in the current crisis atmosphere, there will be little debate and most likely no amendments offered.

The expansion of the assets to be bought to include just about all defaulted loans the large financial institutions are carrying (see Kpete's thread <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4055420&mesg_id=4055420>) indicates that this is not a situational bailout of some institutions, but a bizarre effort to fix the tanking economy by trickle down. All these things--credit cards, student loans, loans in general, are failing because the economy, "Main St.", is failing. Trying to fix it this way will make things immeasurably worse. It will destroy the dollar, making everyone's savings, especially Baby Boomers who have an entire lifetime of savings, worthless just when our largest demographic is aging out of the shrinking job market. It starts a vicious cycle where the "rescue", while temporarily bailing out investment houses and banks makes the economy worse, so people can't pay back more loans, so more "assets" need rescuing, and so on. In a shockingly short time there will be no way to save the financial institutions, and the money needed for a proper rescue of the economy will be gone.

The only feasible way to rescue the financial system is to do the leanest of rescues while re-regulating, restoring taxation on the ultra-wealthy, corporations, and estates, and providing direct help to the people by job creation including support for the manufacturing sector, which would stem the flow of defaults. This is also the only way to prevent the slashing of vital gov't programs like Social Security and public schooling.

Go to website of the Joint Economic Committee and see if your one of your Congressmembers is a member--Senators <http://jec.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=About.SenateMembers>, Representatives <http://jec.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=About.HouseMembers>. If they are, contact them today.