Sample letter on Bailout to Send to members of Congress

[clear eye]

Dear __________,

I am deeply disturbed at hearing Rep. Frank on Countdown describing the "oversight" Congress is proposing for the bailout plan as a board, funded by Congress rather than the Treasury, Fed, or financial institutions, that would be able to "ask" Treasury after the fact what was paid for each asset purchase, and for an explanation of why that was the right price. Neither this board, nor Congress, would have any ability to halt a purchase even if the price is drastically off, or change the individuals making the pricing decisions. We've had eight years of government officials being publicly exposed for wrongdoing and continuing the same actions anyway, in effect saying, "So you (Congress) don't like it and the public doesn't like it, but you can't do anything about it, so we don't care." In light of this history, and Paulson's recently exposed corruption, this is beyond inadequate and into the realm of stage dressing.

Pres. Hoover tried throwing money at the banks to deal with defaults arising from a troubled economy and it failed utterly. More recently Japan tried to cope with a serious recession by doing the same and found it useless. The financial institutions and their employees are as wrong on this as a solution as they were on mortgage-backed securities and derivatives. I also hear that requiring equity rather than asset purchases is no longer being considered; the taxpayers deserve having this reopened, especially in light of the debt too huge to rescue in the form of "credit default swaps".

The only obligation you have is to leave the next President enough money and borrowing power to rescue the economy by other, "New Deal"-style means after this fails. If excess borrowing to finance this moneypit is extreme enough to tank the dollar, the gov't will be broke just when the economy desperately needs help.

Sincerely,

[Just-plain-Kathy]

1. I love Obama but I just went to his website and told him....

...I wanted a refund of the $100 I charged to his campaign IF he votes to give Bush and his friends the $700b.

I will be very disappointed if Obama falls for this stunt.

[clear eye]

2. There WILL be some kind of bailout. The question is

whether Congress will require veto power over purchases and will demand some percentage of equity in the bailed out institutions in exchange. So far it doesn't look good. All independent economists expect the Paulson bailout plan to cost much more than $700B. The worst thing is that it will actually make things vastly worse by tanking the dollar. As the real economy crashes there will be an epidemic of defaults on debt that will cause financial institutions to fail anyway. This bailout, if not vastly reduced and changed in character, will leave the next President w/o the resources to do a New Deal style rescue.

So the thing to demand of Obama and your members of Congress is giving a Congressional oversight board some real control, limiting the dollar amount, and requiring equity in exchange for bailout.

[Mind_your_head]

4. No, WHY do you assume there must be some sort of bailout.......

Bernacke and Paulson said everything was "hunky-dory" just less than two weeks ago! Why do you believe them when ALL OF THE SUDDEN they NEED $700 Billion dollars, right f*ckin' now!?!?!? (And don't ask any questions! No siree bob, uh-uh. They can't tell ya, or they'd have to kill ya)

Stop playing/being the fool who believes their ridiculous junk!

edit: Got my their, there, they're 's all wrong (again) ~ I hate that *sorry*

[clear eye]

7. You call me a gullible "fool", but

apologize about your spelling?!!

[Mind_your_head]

3. .

:thumbsup:

[clear eye]

5. Troll.

Does my letter read like I'm buying their "junk"? Or maybe you just don't read so good and can't get past the title lines. I believe it because absolutely no one in Congress is suggesting otherwise. I'm doing my damnedest, calling and writing my members of Congress, posting and emailing my letter, in an effort to limit the damage. What contructive action are you taking?

[clear eye]

6. Correction to OP

The first line should read "is a board", not "as a board".