Do you support or oppose a bailout?

[Renew Deal]

Poll question: Do you support or oppose a bailout?

I am using bailout very loosely to mean using any amount of tax payer money in any configuration (lump sum, scheduled capital injections, conditions based, etc.).

It needs to be asked...

[leftofcool]

1. I oppose any bail out or "loan" using taxpayer money

[AllieB]

2. I oppose a bailout with taxpayer money.

But we have to have a bailout of some sort.

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. You are using "bailout" far too broadly

I think the government must step in to prevent the Great Depression II. However, I oppose any bailout that lets off the hook the people responsible for the mess, and I STRONGLY oppose any bailout that rewards the CEOs of the companies that are crumbling under their greed and lack of fiscal prudence.

[Renew Deal]

7. I defined bailout as the use of taxpayer money.

If I asked about regulation, it would be 100-0 for regulation.

[Trajan]

15. You are against using taxpayer money ?

You actually have two question mixed together : Whether Wall Street banks should be 'bailed out', and whether taxpayer funds should be used ....

IF you define a 'bailout' as the use of taxpayer money, then public funding of any kind is a 'bailout' .... Public schooling ? - bailout .... Job training ? ... bailout .... SURELY you didnt mean you were against using taxpayer money, IE the national treasure, in all cases .... What you are against is the bailout; period .... (Who else is going to pay for it ? .... if a private buyer does so; it isnt a public bailout ..) ... For the record: I am against the bailout, but I am FOR using taxpayer money ....

I ALMOST started a similar thread this morning, but I will instead explain what I believe here:

Instead of using 'taxpayer money' to 'bailout' Wall Street moguls, what if we instead spent that money to put people to work ... Perhaps in a WPA type of program that would replace the crumbling national infrastructure: Bridges ... mass transit systems ... solar and wind farms ....

If Wall Street wants that money .... They can EARN it as it trickles UP from the bottom ....

Help people work, and the economic activity snowballs upward to support that work, and on and on ....

I would completely support using 'taxpayer money' in that way, and that is NOT a bailout .... or a handout ....

It is where I think our party should be leading us ...

[Renew Deal]

18. I get what you're saying

I think it's pretty understood at this point that bailout means Wall Street bailout. And yes, puttig people to work is not a "bailout."

[TechBear_Seattle]

20. I have no problem with taxpayer money being used prudently to avert a national collapse

I have a great many problems with taxpayer money being used to prop up corporations that fell prey to their own greed and line the pockets of the executives who brought those corporations down.

The one is not at all the same as the other, no matter what the corporatists in both parties are insisting.

[Renew Deal]

24. I agree completely.

And I don't trust Bush, Paulson, and the Republicans to do the right thing. I think they are just trying to save their friends.

[yurbud]

4. if the bailout includes no money, bitch-slapping Paulson & Bernanke and tar & feathering them...

I might support it.

[dipsydoodle]

5. It's not actually my money

but I seriously believe that without severe regulation it will be no more than a temporary fix and hence will simply be wasted US taxpayers money.

[mike_c]

6. oppose, unequivocally....

I want to focus on helping the citizenry get through the consequences of a financial collapse, which will be hard. I absolutely oppose bailing out the current corrupt banking industry. Let them eat their own livers.

[RB TexLa]

8. Oppose, as Senator Obama says people have to own their failures.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

17. It's bizarre to quote the man to defend a position opposite from his

[RB TexLa]

19. His actions should follow his words, I'm not the one making it bizarre.

[bdamomma]

23. right on Senator Obama

[sharesunited]

9. Yes, to make a market in mortgage backed securities. The fire sale spiral is a killing force.

Treasury does need a small working group to crack open and pick apart the contents of the bundled mortgages to rank each one by (1) payment history, (2) current loan-to-value (use Zillow), and (3) current credit score of the borrowers.

[theophilus]

10. I'm willing to use my tax money to keep from losing my

business, my credit rating, and (at this stage) my very life. We finally have our own business which depends on discretionary income. This situation is serious, imo. I demand safeguards, law changes, oversight, etc. Those who would just say "screw them" and plunge us into a deeper recession or a depression I view as mean-spirited, ignorant, self-centered ideologues. It is just because of my situation, you see. I don't believe in vendettas.

[mike_c]

21. mean-spirited ideologue here....

(raises hand)

I want fundamental change in our economic system, most notably an end to consumer capitalism, or at least a good throttling. We're destroying a planet at an accelerating rate to create more and more unnecessary cheap stuff to consume. No matter what institutions we save or fail to save in the current "crisis," the underlying system is NOT sustainable. It WILL collapse, sooner or later, unless we change directions soon.

[jojo54]

11. Only after the 3.1B paid to the top 5 failed corp. CEO'S

goes bank into the pot.

THEN, maybe I'd think about it.

[GAtomboy]

16. EXACLTY

Jojo.... i support a bailout not by taxpayer money but by fat cat CEO's. Those fuckers made inflated salaries and bonuses off of greed and lies. We should all be demanding the money from them.

Wanda Sykes said it perfectly on Leno... the poor are bailing out the rich... we refuse in this country let the rich not be rich.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Opposed. But, maybe they could borrow the money from the Pentagon they just gave $630bn to.

Not to mention that the "bailout" won't work. Except to aid the bankers and give the people the impression that the politicians are "doing something".

[mike_c]

22. although I'm unequivically opposed to this "bail out" plan...

...I'd support transferring money from the Pentagon's military budget to a Wall St bail out. Let the politicians and the MIC decide where they want to spend the money-- to kill poor people or to enrich rich people. Just not both. Not any longer.

[kentuck]

13. Not at this time...

I think there is a major correction underway and the market needs to shake down a bit more before anyone talks about a bailout. Just my opinion.

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. If a bill could be written, in this political environment, which salvages the economy, I'd say yes.

Everything that might work would be rejected as class warfare, socialism or punitive of the rich.

Our government is ideologically incapable of fixing anything which is broken, because they perceive broken things as okay, and okay things as broken.