Tell Congress: No to Bailout! (Action alerts; updated)

Dandelion Salad

Note: please see Want to stop the banksters’ bailout? by The Other Katherine Harris for an example of a letter to send to Congress.

Updated: Oct 1, 2008: added another one, scroll down

Updated: added another one

Updated: added another three; see below

Gathered up several action alerts from various sources.  Please let your congress people know how you feel about this most important issue.  ~ Lo

Action Alerts:

Tell your members of Congress that they must retain oversight of the financial industry bailout: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25969 h/t: email from American Freedom Campaign

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Email your Senators and Representative and spread the word: http://www.democrats.com/stop-paulsons-plunder h/t: email from Democrats.com:

George Bush wants taxpayers to give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a $700 billion blank check – $2,333 for every man, woman, and child – to bail out Wall Street for its reckless speculation and greed. That’s on top of $1.1 trillion for Bush’s other recent bailouts, including A.I.G., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns.

The Paulson Plan is a total outrage with no restrictions, no accountability, and no repair of the underlying problem of foreclosures on fraudulent mortgages. Each of Bush’s previous bailouts was sold as a cure for the financial crisis, but each had little effect. The Paulson Plan achieves only one goal with certainty: stealing from the middle class to protect the rich.

The current financial crisis is the direct result of 28 years of rightwing Republican deregulation, corruption, and greed, which became fatally toxic under Bush-Cheney and the Republican Congress. When George Bush stole the White House in 2001, President Clinton handed him a projected 10-year surplus of $5 trillion. But Bush immediately gave $2 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, then wasted $1-3 trillion invading Iraq on the basis of lies. Now Bush demands Congress increase the national debt to $11 trillion.

Congress must reject Paulson’s Plunder and enact a plan with these progressive principles from the Backbone Campaign:

A. The people who caused the problem or profited most should pay for it

1. Highly compensated executives total compensation should be capped or taxed heavily as a condition for being bailed out.
2. Tobin tax on all transactions in Finance, Insurance and Real Estate including currency transactions.
3. Government takes an equity stake, proportionate to the size of the bailout
4. Tax hedge fund managers’ income
5. Accountability – fire executives of failed companies as done in the UK, and abrogate their severance packages.
6. Impose a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for single taxpayers.

B. Re-regulate to prevent this from happening again

1. Direct the Federal Reserve to intervene to prevent asset bubbles.
2. Extend reserve requirements to new security categories
3. Regulate the packaging of loans so they can be evaluated, rated, and priced rationally.
4. Regulate hedge funds and private equity funds in a way comparable to banks

C. Include Main Street in the bailout and invest in a new productive economy

1. Establish a moratorium on foreclosures, renegotiating mortgages or institute a rent-to-own plan to keep people in homes.
2. Create a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages, in productive jobs that add value to homes and communities.
3. Invest the taxes on speculation, executive compensation, and the surtax on the wealthy in clean energy, infrastructure, education, and health care.

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http://www.votenobailout.org/ h/t: Lullaby Academy

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http://www.usalone.com/help_people_instead.php h/t: jperryam

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Write to your Representative: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml h/t: davisfleetwood

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Updated

From my websites’ links (see below on the right-hand side): Write To Congress and my Websites Page:

Oppose the $700 Billion Mortgage Bailout

SHOULD CONGRESS BAILOUT WALL STREET TO HELP MAIN STREET?

The Bush Administration is proposing a $700 billion bailout to buy bad mortgage loans and other bad assets at a deep discount. According to the Administration, this is needed because the economy faces a credit crisis with banks refusing to loan short term to each other. Without those loans businesses, insurance companies and others won’t get the money they need to make payments. This could cause a run on banks and other institutions and lead to the loss of many more companies, jobs and homes to foreclosure. Treasury Secretary Paulson said in the long run the government could make money on the deal while helping the economy in the short term.

Opponents say taxpayer money should not be used to bail out these companies or if we do the executives should have to forfeit pay or their personal assets in exchange. Democrats say a bailout plan should include independent oversight, protections for homeowners and caps on executive compensation.

Tell Congress, Pres. Bush and Secretary Paulson what you think of this plan.

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From my Websites Page:

Feds Bail Out AIG With $85 Billion Loan: Do You Agree?

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From an email from Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO

No Blank Check for Wall Street

Contact your member of Congress and their leaders today and tell them “no blank checks” for Wall Street.

Updated

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders h/t: Bob Getsla

I need your help to oppose Bush’s Plan to Bailout Wall Street at Taxpayer Expense.

TAKE ACTION BELOW

For years, we have heard the Bush administration tell us how “robust” our economy was and how strong the “fundamentals” were. That was until a few days ago. Now, we are being told that if Congress does not act immediately and approve a $700 billion Wall Street bailout proposal there will be an unprecedented economic meltdown in the United States and an unraveling of the global economy.

Shockingly, having looked the other way while Wall Street hucksters looted the economy, the Bush administration now wants American taxpayers and our children to pick up the tab. I say “no way.” But I need your help to let officials in Washington know that Americans don’t want to be saddled with the cost of this bailout – a bailout made necessary by the Bush administration’s deregulatory fever and Wall Street’s insatiable greed.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.

Updated: Oct 1, 2008

Vote Against Bail-Out Supporters in Congress:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/vote-against-bail-out-supporters-in-congress.html.

For more background information, take a look at the Bailout Reader: http://mises.org/story/3128.

h/t: Allan Vogel

see

Want to stop the banksters’ bailout? by The Other Katherine Harris

Exclusive: Resolving the Wall Street Financial Crisis: Monetary Reform by Nikki Alexander

The Molotov: In The Red (for inspiration)

Mushroom Cloud over Wall Street By Mike Whitney

Equity, Not “Cash For Trash” In Bailout by Dennis Kucinich + YouTube’s Cutest Animals

Paulson Bailout Plan a Historic Swindle By William Greider

The media’s moola madness By William Bowles

Financial crisis: working people will pay

Capitalism on trial

Ron Paul on Glen Beck + Bail Outs + Shadow Economy

Thank You, Ladies and Gentlemen by Richard C. Cook

Welcome to the final stages of the coup… by Larisa Alexandrovna

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse