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Government Bailout Has Been Provided To Everyone Except The Ones Paying For It
Toby Keith came on the Colbert Show October 27th and made a profound statement that America is in a bad upside down loan. You can’t just get out of a bad upside down loan, you have to file bankruptcy, start over or get bailed out. There aren’t any other options. What America needs is a solid solution at the foundation level, but not just a solution to the hardship but a complete refocusing of our leadership and those in authority at the highest levels. This movement needs to be aimed at those who helped create the problem, not just the problem itself.
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That is what many reports say the Occupy Wall Street movement is trying to accomplish. The question is, is anyone else? So far the “bailout” has gone to banks, corporations and Wall Street capitalists. So is there really any difference between the Republicans and Democrats at the moment? Politicians all are focused on everything except the people, on both sides of the isle. Even the job creation bills aren’t truly focused on the people as much as they benefit small businesses and construction companies. Granted, this will create jobs, but the American people will still have to compete for those jobs. Not to mention that there aren’t as many new jobs being created as there are Americans needing jobs, and we have yet to see whether or not those jobs will pay well enough to sustain households.
The biggest difference between Main Street and Wall Street is that America isn’t looking for a hand-out; they are looking for a hand-up. Many who are part of the upside down loan aren’t irresponsible or lack the ability to manage their finances nor are they lazy free loaders. The majority is willing to work and earn what they get. It is through the disappearance of their investments, the loss of jobs, the unregulated increase in credit card fees and interest rates, the unregulated methods of mortgage and student loan companies and an overall lack of confidence in the economy that has put the vast majority into a troubled situation. This isn’t evidence of a bad lifestyle or inability to take responsibility for their own actions; this is purely the snowball effect of an economy and political environment in a massive downward spiral.
Whatever measures are taken to get the country back on track, inevitably come at the expense of the tax payers, so it really only makes sense that the tax payers be the ones to directly benefit from the corrective measures. Wall Street was bailed out on the taxpayer dime. Shouldn’t there be some kind of Taxpayer bailout on the taxpayer dime? Since the taxpayers are funding the bailout, it isn’t accurate to say that they are asking for or receiving a hand-out. It is simply the leadership recognizing they serve the people of the nation and leveraging the taxpayer dollars to benefit the backbone of the nation.
That is the main point that so many Politicians, CEOs and Officials keep forgetting; if the working class people fail, falter or despair, the rest of the nation will mirror the collapse. As the people go, so goes the nation. The people are the foundation of this nation and the nation cannot stand if its foundation crumbles. The top down solutions aren’t real solutions. It is time our “leadership” starts listening to the people they supposedly represent. It is time for the bottom-up solutions to be put into place. If it is good for Wall Street, it should be applied in the same measure to Main Street, especially since Main Street is the one funding the measure. They certainly should be the ones to benefit from it.
Let us say, for instance, each of the 153.9 million people in the work force (which according to the CIA World Fact Book includes the estimated number of unemployed in 2010) receives a check for $10,000. The total cost for this initiative would be around 1.54 Billion dollars. That is a huge savings over the $787 billion bailout that was provided to help banks and corporations stay afloat. What could $10,000 do in the hands of every individual that worked in the last two years, including those that now qualify for unemployment? It could certainly pay down student loans or pay for the completion of a degree. It could pay down car loans or purchase cars for cash. It could repair cars that don’t function properly, so that workers can get to their jobs. It could keep a family from losing their home. It could provide food for those that go without on a regular basis. It could put clothing on children. It could pay down credit card debt so that individuals wouldn’t be subject to the predatory methods of credit card companies. It could do any number of things but one thing it would certainly do is stimulate the economy in every sector. It might even be able to convince the people that the leadership hasn’t forgotten them. It could also restore a little hope which is vital to the future of the nation.
The key is we are paying for it anyway. The taxpayers pay for it when houses are foreclosed upon. The taxpayers pay for it when families are forced to file bankruptcy. The taxpayers pay for it when individuals default on their hospital bills. The taxpayers pay for it when CEOs get greedy. The taxpayers pay for it when Politicians decide their corporate interests are of greater importance than the interests of the people. The taxpayers pay for it when corporations send all their jobs overseas. The taxpayers pay for it, so shouldn’t the taxpayers benefit from it as well? Shouldn’t we have the same opportunities to start over, start fresh, reduce liabilities and be productive members of society again?
Shouldn’t we take the time to let our “leadership” know we want that chance too?
Image: Veterans Today
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16 Responses to Government Bailout Has Been Provided To Everyone Except The Ones Paying For It
Sarah Jones
Oct. 31st, 2011 at 8:21 pm
Excellent points. I am so sick of Republicans scolding the American people for “being irresponsible” while they shield the “too big to fail” corporate bangsters and demand our money to cover their profitable mistakes.
Jimmy
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 6:50 am
Wait…what? 153.9 million x $10,000 is $1.54 *T*rillion. But still, better investing that kind of dough in Main Street rather than Wall Street. Wall Street is a casino and ponzi scheme rolled together. Kind of like rolling a turd in glitter.
Isaac Sherman
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 10:31 am
Yeah was just gonna point that out. However, with 10% unemployment and 300 million people in the country, perhaps he was only taking about the unemployed? It would still be 154 billion. While I agree with the sentiment, I don’t know that that’s the best solution. A change in govt is critical, though, as political leadership is awful right now.
Chris Taylor
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 5:00 pm
We don’t need a hand out. We need the HANDS out of our earnings.
Here is how to solve the problems in this country. We have to RESTORE the “self correcting balance” mechanism built into the system.
Step #1 Elimination of all non commercial property taxes (including school taxes)
Step #2 Recognize that WAGES are not INCOME and eliminate 100% of all taxation on wages including matching funds from employer including SS and Medi. NO TAXES ON WAGES. only on INCOME.
Step #3 Eliminate USURY in our monetary system. 10% (actual not apr) cap on interest rates for any money lent via fractional reserve funding.
if you ACTUALLY lend out your own ACTUAL CASH then you can charge an APR.
NO TAXES on Essentials (basic food clothing and basic needs (eyeglasses toothpaste etc..)
ie remove all “DIRECT” taxes on an individuals very existence since that is by definition SLAVERY and encourages the corrupt blank check system we have today.
this means ALL taxes will have to be basically via sales taxes – tariff’s and income taxes and corporate taxes.
now granted no corporations pays taxes (not one not one penny) YOU the customer pay those taxes via the price of the products you buy.
but this creates a SELF CORRECT mechanism in the system.
if they raise the taxes on computers to high people will stop buying them. Self Correcting.
its the “blank check” at gunpoint taxes we have today that create the monetary rape system we have in place.
Government would be forced to either assist the economy to increase tax revenue (ie they only do as well as WE DO) or be forced to budget LIKE WE ARE FORCED TOO.
you see Gov does not have to budget they just TAX MORE when its direct taxation with no self correction mechanism.
I don’t want a hand out. I don’t want a bailout. I just want the government to stop taking 50-60% of my wage earnings in taxation.
The average person making less than $40k a year pays over 50% of their earnings to DIRECT TAXATION not even counting indirect taxation.
Stop raping us and we will do FINE. I make MORE than enough money (less than $22k now) but the government takes over 60% of it (most of that being property taxes) so I have nothing LEFT to live on.
Raymond
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Unfortunately, what you propose is probably just too simplistic. Though a tax system that emphasizes one particular group of taxpayers, that of the investor class, over others, isn’t fair, that is the system we have. The system we have today, one that favors those who have enough money to hire a smart accountant to tweak the system in order to block the payment of their full tax rate. Gov’t taxation is not the problem so much as the favors given some but not others through loopholes and tax havens and even some deductibles. And making laws that favor jobs in other countries is more of the same. Why reward multinationals with foreign investment and hiring overseas by giving tax breaks? No tax havens would bring home much revenue.
Taxation is payment for your citizenship at work for the privilege of living in this country and not bad in itself, it is for the good of us all.
Obbop
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 9:35 am
“There’s class warfare, all right, Mr. (Warren) Buffett said, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
“There has been class warfare going on,” Buffett, 81, said in a Sept. 30 interview with Charlie Rose on PBS. It’s just that my class is winning. And my class isn’t just winning, I mean we’re killing them.”
PIZZED
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 2:18 pm
HOW TO FIX CONGRESS – where the fault lies: politicians steeped in greed and self-serving objectives. IN CONGRESS THEY HAVE CREATED A ROYAL DOUBLE STANDARD FOR THEMSELVES WHICH TOTALLY ELEVATES THEM FROM THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS THEY CREATE FOR THE COMMON CITIZENS!
… Warren Buffet from a recent interview on CNBC offers one of the best quotes regarding the debt ceiling:
“I could end the deficit in 5 minutes,” he told CNBC. “You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.
The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971…before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land…all because of public pressure.
Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really must be passed around. It’s an idea whose time has come:
It NEEDS to be proposed: a *Congressional Reform Act of 2011*
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no
pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
THIS COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED IF EVERY VOTER WOULD DEMAND IT!!
Jerry
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 7:51 pm
153.9 million times $10,000 is a lot more than 1.54 billion…
Goober
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 8:58 pm
If 10 grand were given to every person employed, 150 million, that would be 1.5 trillion dollars not billion dollars.
But anyway, supposing that happened. You know what would also immediately happen? Massive inflation.
J Galt
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 10:48 pm
When will the Left stop talking about the “big bank bailout” of Wall Street. Do your research and your math. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office now estimates that the “bank bailout” actually *generated* $7 billion in net profits for the government so far, and AIG – the biggest recipient – is now on track to pay ack a profit as well. This is because the government basically bought the stock of all these firms at the height of the crisis when their values were terrible, and has sold them at much higher prices.
Had the government not intervened, the banking system could well have collapsed and caused an enormous amount of financial collateral damage that indeed would have sent us into a Depression.
I get it. Unemployment is high. The middle class is losing is standard of living. Yes, many Wall Street types make far too much money for what they do. But even if you took 100% of the money they make, you still wouldn’t solve the problem – as emotionally satisfying as the concept sounds. Do the math, and look at the hard statistics. But don’t accept the knee-jerk leftist slop that this is class oppression.
The US now spends more on entitlement programs, direct support, and medical than we have in all our history both in absolute dollars and as a percent of GDP. Why doesn’t anyone draw the connection to the increase in the welfare state and a decline in standard of living? Because it results in a conclusion no one on the left wants to hear but which may be true — that increased taxes and entitlement spending, however noble the cause, actually *degrades* the economic generation potential of a country.
The country needs more accountability for social spending, grant programs, medical spending. Instead, the Left wants to increase taxes, increase spending, and force income redistribution from the 1% without a *single mention of how to make that spending accountable for real results*. When was the last time you heard anyone on the left talk about increasing spending and oh, by the way, “here is how we will measure the effectiveness of the spending and reduce fraud and abuse.” That is never discussed.
I am a member of the 1%. I have created hundreds of jobs with companies I started and personally invested in. How many jobs have you, directly, created in this country? If you haven’t ever done that, then you have no idea just how hard the government currently makes it to offer good-paying jobs and expand investment.
I would *gladly* pay more in taxes, if only I knew it was going to be spent wisely, and not on unaccountable, open-ended, un-ending increases in spending for indefinite time periods without any regard for cost-effectiveness.
Until the Left actually engages in non-emotional discourse about what spending works, and what doesn’t, and stop villifying those who actually create the jobs and companies whose wealth you want to expropriate, then we will stop hiring, fight tax increases, and keep offshoring to China or Mexico or wherever where people don’t have a sense of entitlement to a $40,000 a year job, “free” health care or a “free” university education.
The 1% is not impoverishing America. The 99% is, by insisting on insatiable demands for social spending that is apparently accountable to no one and fails to recognize that spending without direct economic benefits destroys value, and erases economic growth.
Shiva (Moderator)
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Yes tthat’s why 60%+ of the money in this country resides in the 1%. That money is the purchasing power of the middle class. Or was. Sorry John, nice try. The middle class is the job creators with their purchasing.
ronPaulResource.com
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 11:19 pm
It seems like Ron Paul’s name should be mentioned in this conversation!!!
Shiva (Moderator)
Nov. 1st, 2011 at 11:54 pm
Why?
R.Chandramohan
Nov. 2nd, 2011 at 1:32 am
99%’s share of governments’ income may be by 50% and the 1% pay the remaining 50% and receive 99%of governments’ provisions through various schemes and plans.
Kevin
Nov. 2nd, 2011 at 5:26 am
Precisely why do google not rank on the basis of excellent quality. You need to be on the top rated.
Glen
Nov. 2nd, 2011 at 5:26 am
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