9-25-08, 9:31 am
For its anticipated $18+ billion share in the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street banks and lenders now being ramrodded through Congress by the Bush administration, the state of Michigan could provide almost 7 million of its residents with free health care, says a new online calculator created by the National Priorities Project (NPP). That's about two-thirds of the entire state population, according to recent census data.
The Bush administration's $700 billion bailout plan asks taxpayers to cover the unregulated bad business decisions of a large gang of unscrupulous lenders who have severely jeopardized the country's financial system. Bush’s proposal provides Henry Paulson (formerly CEO of investment giant Goldman Sachs) with specific immunity from any congressional or judicial oversight, along with complete authority to hand out gobs of US taxpayer cash to Wall Street bankers who have participated in a binge of unbridled greed and fraud.
And the taxpayers funding the bailout? If Bush's plan passes, they can expect nothing in return, other than the secure feeling that comes from knowing that the coffers of MErrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs will be bursting with the fabulous sums of cash picked straight from our now empty pockets.
While it is important and necessary to stabilize the credit system and prevent further catastrophe, it is important that the solution should actually work, that it should come at minimum cost to taxpayers, and that it should benefit not just the Wall Street players who caused the mess, but working families as well, say critics of Bush's plan.
Jo Comerford, executive director of the National Priorities Project (NPP), wants Congress to avoid rushing into a decision on this bailout. Congress and the American people need to take the time to carefully examine all the details. 'It is extremely difficult for most of us to get our minds around what this extraordinary amount of money means,' she said in a press statement.
'We hear every day about spending cuts to infrastructure and social services. Now the current Administration is proposing to spend more than what is currently allocated for the US War in Iraq on this Wall Street bailout,' she continued. It is critically important that we urge our elected representatives to take a close and careful look at the trade-offs involved in their decisions.'
To put the massive figures being thrown around into some perspective, the NPP statement pointed out that the dollar amount of the proposed bailout 'would allow us to repair all of our nations 77,000 deteriorated bridges and still have $519 billion to spend; or it would allow us to rebuild all of our nations 33,000 deteriorating schools and still have $664 billion to spend.'
Looking at the bailout in terms of what various representative states are being asked to contribute, it is obvious that all this taxpayer money could be appropriately spent in more effective and socially necessary ways.
If Ohio’s projected contribution of more than $24 billion to the Wall Street bailout were used for other purposes, the state could hire nearly 400,000 new elementary school teachers – not that it even needs that many – but the numbers give a clear idea of the huge ransom being sought from the Buckeye state.
Florida, to take another example, could put more than 800,000 new public safety officers on the streets with the amount of money the Bush administration expects it to chip in for the Wall Street slush fund.
Almost 1.5 million college students in Indiana could get a one-year scholarship for the price tag being stuck on that state by the Bush-Paulson Wall Street scam.
Every single one of Pennsylvania's children could get full health care for more than a year, if the state's share of the $26.7 billion George W. Bush is demanding for the Wall Street bailout were used to care for children instead.
Finally, according to US Census data, there are about 2 million households in Colorado. The NPP calculates that about $10.7 billion would head east to Wall Street if Bush's proposed treasury heist goes through. But if Colorado's expected contribution was spent locally, every family in Colorado could become the proud owner of the same number of homes John McCain now owns – seven – all with renewable electricity. Now if seven homes per family seems too lavish, let's just say that there would be more than enough cash to build 14 million individual housing units for Colorado's residents.
Of note is that John McCain considered this crisis on Wall Street to be enough of a national emergency to suspend his campaign and to avoid debating Barack Obama. While we are mired in a more than five-year long war with no end in sight, 600,000 jobs have disappeared from the economy, millions of working families have lost their homes, and working families have been struggling to make ends meet for well more than a year now, John McCain has chosen to respond to the crisis faced by millionaires. It is just another signal that he is out of touch with working families.
Tell Congress today: no bailout without a plan to aid working families.
