Bailout Plan Gets Tax Cuts And Other "Sweeteners" To Help It Pass
Despite the fact that unprecedented outcry from taxpayers overwhelmed the servers hosting the Web sites of the House and its members, forcing administrators to limit e-mails from the public for the first time ever, the steady push toward a bailout plan continues. The newest version of the plain contains what CNN is calling "sweeteners" -- tax cuts and health care reforms that are meant to appeal to the holdouts.
CNN says:
The "sweeteners" in the package include:
- An increase in the amount that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will insure in bank accounts: to $250,000, up from $100,000
- A fix that would prevent middle-class taxpayers from paying the alternative minimum tax
- A number of tax extensions favored by either Republicans or Democrats
- Tax exemptions for renewable energy
- A measure that would require health insurers to treat mental health issues the same way they treat physical illnesses
'Sweeteners' could make bailout package sour for House Dems [CNN]
(Photo: Getty)
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Comments:
Hell no, I don't want this socialist bill even if it is wrapped in tax cuts. That's like crap wrapped in bacon. Sure the bacon is good but you have to eat the crap too.
Why fix a problem that will fix itself given time and allowing the market to correct?
A measure that would require health insurers to treat mental health issues the same way they treat physical illnesses
See that's just common sense and shouldn't have to be a 'treat' to get public approval. I actually didn't know that Insurance Companies literally hated mental-health until last week when a friend was talking about her insurance and the therapy she was getting. She basically said she was approved (and had to get pre-approved), but that if a butterfly farted, they would yank said approval in a heart beat.
crazy crazy stuff (no pun)
I hate the concept of this bailout, but the reality is that if it doesn't eventually pass, the market will drop like a stone.
Perception is reality - and the perception is that this must pass or the world will come to an end. People are literally panicking, and something has to be done. Even if it doesn't help, it will calm people down and stabilize the market to some extent.
It sickens me that we allow our congress to bribe each other like this. Oh well...just buy some ultra short ETF's.
@chiieddy: How long are you willing to wait? 1 year? 5 years? 15 years? How much unemployment are you willing to stomach while it "works itself out"?
Unfortunately, the consequences of this affects us all. The bailout should be written so that we'll have a chance to regain some of the money spent in the bailout over time, and it should be passed to chill the market out.
I'm not sure how to vote here. I don't exactly support the bill, with or without the sweeteners, but since destroying the economy is going to end up costing more in the long run, I think the bailout, as painful as it is, is the right move for right now. The sweeteners, if anything make it less palatable, because they'll just make the costs higher.
Not enough sugar to sweeten the turd.
What's the purpose of the FDIC increase? Is it just to assuage panicky consumers? Seems more like it's just digging the shitpit deeper. If we're going to be bailing anyone out, let's not tack on future bailout responsibilities. Promote reform, not mollycoddling.
Misery loves company. With that said, I'm hoping for depression #2. My job just cut my pay (has nothing to do with bailout and everything to do with buyout, which the buyout has nothing to do with the bailout) so I might as well not have a job, move into my mom's basement and finish the education I started. Main focus: EDUCATION. luckily the mo po I get, the mo free my school gets.
I'm against any kind of Paulson slush fund regardless of what else is in it. There are simply better ways of dealing with this than putting Paulson in a helicopter with bags of cash to shovel out over Wall Street...
@InfiniTrent: Will drop like a stone? Seems like we've already crossed that bridge. Although as much as the Market has crashed recently, it can crash a lot more.
Yeah, making FDIC insure more is...um...a great idea?
Sure, it sounds like it'd make more people put more money into banks, but anyone who has more than 100k to put in probably knows how to disperse their money to not have to worry about it.
Plus, I'd have to say that most people worried about 250k in one account are probably not what I would consider middle class.
So, realistically, it's a move to help rich people that in all reality don't need the help.
Great going guys, this is just the kind of hard work and forward thinking we expect from our elected officials!
@snoop-blog: Unemployment, here I come. I'll collect my 390/week go to school full time, and only put applications at chinese restaurants.
@battra92: Some of that bacon looks pretty good, though. Can't we just pick the bacon off and wash off the shit? I'm serious; why does it take something this big to make some of those "sweeteners" plausible?
One reason the emails to congress are being limited is that Dave Ramsey has created a "common sense fix", posted it on his website, and emailed it to the thousands of members of his message board, encouraging them to contact their state representatives with this proposal. More than likely the sites are being overwhelmed, DR has a huge following. Read about it here: [www.daveramsey.com]
As much as I have my own feelings about Newt, he raised some excellent alternatives in this article: [newt.org] - and I too find it hilariously stupid that Republicans, who historically have been hands off the free market, are suddenly drumming up support that essentially props up a failed economy and directly contradicts small government ideals.
Never before have I felt so ashamed to be a Republican.
@chrisjames: If I'm going to eat a turd, I think I'd rather have hot sauce over sugar. Don't ask me how/why I came to that conclusion.
@chiieddy: Because markets do not always self-correct. Sometimes they fail, and sometimes they correct but do great harm along the way. The problems we have now are the results of letting the financial industry run itself. This is why government regulation, and sometimes direct intervention, is necessary to the functioning of any market economy.
In theory the 250k attempts to counter inflation, although I agree with Jester down there... If you've got 250k, you're probably not middle class and in danger of losing your house/being foreclosed on.
@pezhore: They only support socialism that benefits them. It has nothing to do with helping the little guy.
If it weren't an election year, this thing probably would have gone through unanimously. :/
@Finine:
Oy. Form letters serve to do nothing. One of the key reasons why so many Congressional delegates responded to their constituents displeasure in the bill is because it didn't appear to be an organized campaign. Ordinary people were pissed about the government bailing out multi-millionaires with taxes, it was this unorganized clamor that broke through. The only thing dave ramsey is doing is creating unhelpful noise.
- my 2c
There's no amount of sugar you can put on this bailout bill to make it palatable. It's a bad rush job of a bill and it shouldn't be passed. I'm in favor of a bailout, but writing Paulson a $350 billion check is not the way to do it. Doing it fast and doing it right don't have to be mutually exclusive.
@Skybolt:
I'd agree with you Skybolt, but I don't think this bill will do anything to help the underlying causes of this economic breakdown. Buying the bad debts still does nothing to help the liquidity of companies' assets.
No, if this wasn't an election year, it would have been debated and drawn out a bit rather than forced down our throats.
@pezhore:
You are exactly correct...there have not been any viable alternatives postulated by the government or the media. Instead we get crap dipped in chocolate to make it palatable, so that we go ahead and swallow the huge $700 Billion + in order to "save our lives". Come on people...get a fricken legit second opinion instead of letting the greasy back-alley fix-em-up-with-this-wonder-pill doctors convince them to take it or die.
Newt, Dave Ramsey, Mike Huckabee, and many others have given great alternatives that the big-wigs refuse to listen to.
The bailout/rescue is just feeding the monster that will eventually fail unless something legit happens.
Absolutely no mention of REREGULATION of the industry that got so horribly out of control to get us in this boat? Tax cuts and some health care crap is the best they could come up with? WTF. Oh, and how are we going to pay 700 BILLION plus fund increased insurance on savings accounts if we have LESS tax revenue coming in to pay for it?
Fire them all. Let's just put the whole US Government into a Swiss conservatorship and be done with it.
@B: The main reason this bill is worthless is that it encourages the very situation it is intended to fix. By bailing out the people who caused it, it encourages them to continue the same unsafe actions.
A secondary reason is that if they took the same amount of money and divided it evenly among every citizen in the US who is currently in foreclosure or close to it, no one would owe on mortgages and this "crisis" would be averted. It's still rewarding people for stupid decisions, but at least it saves both sides of the equation and not just the banks' side.
Congress: Right, So I'd like to fuck you in the ass but in exchange I'll pay for your grandma's arthritis medication and make sure your boss can pay a bit less taxes. Please pull down your trousers and brace yourselves, I'm monstrously hung.
@bbbco:
Hell, I won't even go so far as to advocate any particular alternative... just fecking look at alternatives! We're getting lambasted by the "ZOMG!! Wallstreet is teh looser!!" side of things - through mainstream media and even the stupid presidential addresses. We need to stop, take a deep breath, and consider before we in debt the nation with almost a trillion dollar debt.
When the words "hundreds of billions" "rush" and "government" are used in the same sentence, anything that comes out of it will not be good. When did we forget along the line that investing involved risk, such as the risk you might lose it all? That why they call it "gambling" and not "winning."
The problem is the earmarks. I will support a bailout bill ONLY if it includes punishment for the people who caused this (going back several decades if need be), and if it has no earmarks.
From the bill:
Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children.
WHAT
THE
FUCK
I was watching an episode of The Daily Show from last week and they put up side-by-side the presidential addresses before the Iraq war and before the bailout bill. They were nearly identical. How come people are suddenly taking him at his word? Look how well it worked last time we were rushed into a decision that will tie up billions of dollars in an uncertain future? I suppose the only good thing about this bill as opposed to the Iraq war is that we have a better estimation on how much this will cost the American people.
Hmm, so the choice still stands, suffer now, maybe be jobless as the economy tanks, or recklessly give money out with very little oversight, little hope to ever see it again, and have a job, but watch my money fly away in taxes... Wonderful.
None of this "sweetens" the deal at all. In fact, they just remind us of stuff the congress should have been doing all along. Treating mental illness like any other disease? That's a friggin' no-brainer, and $700 billion is way too high a cost for legislation we should have already had for years.
If anyone cares... the Senate debates are going to begin pretty quick (in theory) on C-SPAN2 [www.c-span.org]
@pezhore:
Uh, if you have 250k in the bank you're in solid middle-class territory.
Also, if you have 250k in the bank you're probably not foolish enough to sign for a mortgage you can neither afford nor understand (in the case of ARMs or interest only) and thus would not be in danger of losing your house/being foreclosed on.
@Optimus: Hmmm. I like your solution better. Too bad it has less of a chance to pass than this bailout.
@pezhore:
That's because the so-called Republicans of today are actually the Democrats of 30-40 years ago, and the Democrats of today are the Communists of the same time period.
um... isn't this like "putting lipstick on a pig"?
'Sweeteners' I would've liked to see:
- CEOs whose companies take bailout money forfeit their salaries and stock options until their company is back on its feet and the taxpayers are repaid. Additionally, they should be unable to sell their shares in the company stock until the taxpayers are repaid or the taxpayers get 75% of the sale price.
- Education for consumers on what interest is, what money is, and what budgeting is. This probably shouldn't be done by the gubment as they're not exactly the bastions of good budgeting with their $9.7 trillion deficit.
- Tons of oversight on the whole financial market because they apparently require it. Banks should no longer be allowed to over-leverage themselves because they obviously cannot handle it.
- Raising FDIC-covered insurance to $250k makes it sound even more like the bill is for the wealthy. Keep the limit at $100k or lower it.
When a child is bad you take a toy away. When they start behaving you give them their toy back. If they again misbehave you take their toy away. Apply that logic to Wall Street.
So...they're thinking of borrowing $700B of tax money for an undisclosed amount of time and they think lowering taxes goes well with that?
You can't make this s**t up.
The Dems should have seen the writing on the wall, then started from scratch.
Rather than using the Republican Bail-out as the template, "fixing" a flawed concept to begin with, they need to create a Progressive alternative that gets enough Dem support (and moderate Republicans, whichever few remain) and deliver it to Bush.
If he vetoes, the wrecked economy is on their shoulders. Well, twice.
This is why they end up throwing non-finance melt-down items on the bill, which is precisely what we DON'T want if the point is reassuring the global markets. Let Dems rise or fall based on their ideas.
I HATE it when the Dems in Congress walk into a political fist fight accepting any GOP position as the starting point. It's like smearing lipstick on a pig. Err, pit bull terrier. Err, hockey mom. No matter what you do to it, you still don't want to kiss it.
again i must say....
ummmmmm yes if it works and ummmmmmm no if it doesnt.
and this time ill add: whats it supposed to do if it does work lol.