The Observer Newspapers | A Bailout We Can All Love

Oct. 3 , 2008

A Bailout We Can All Love

$700 BILLION? Really? That's what it's come to?

The financial and legislative turmoil on Wall Street and Capitol Hill has been unbelievable these past few days. Should our legislators support this plan to spend huge amounts of money to support failing financial businesses, or should we just let 'em reap what they have sown and hang on for dear life?

I'm under no illusion that the plan being debated by Congress this week, and which looked to receive support from both chambers as of Wednesday night, will solve all the problems with the economy. Most economists are predicting that we'll be in for a tough ride over the next two years no matter what we do.

But I do think the "bailout" plan will help to lessen the pain a recession can bring. Unfortunately, by failing to regulate these financial giants, we have allowed them to become so big that when they make mistakes and fail they can threaten our entire economy.

Still, we should not be mislead into thinking there are no other alternatives to a bailout. As a senator pointed out last week, doing nothing is always an alternative. But my father-in-law put forth the greatest idea yet for a bailout plan we could all use.

The $700 billion plan now on Capitol Hill represents about $400,000 for every American over the age of 18. Congress should give us the money instead, with the stipulation that we use it to pay off our debt. We'll pay off our mortgages, or big chunks of them, our credit cards, etc. Those payments will bolster the financial sector, and we'll have a few bucks left over to continue spending lavishly.

Of course, then you run into the "space-time continuem" thing in which we would be borrowing from ourselves to pay ourselves, but it worked for the financial companies for years until the whole pyramid scheme collapsed on them.

If we can learn anything from this crisis, let's at least learn how to come out ahead in the deal.