by Gail Kerry

Created on: September 27, 2008

The $700 Billion bailout will not prevent a recession and it is likely that the original sum of money requested will only be the tip of the iceberg. Here's the bottom line. The Fed plans to avert an economic disaster by spending $700 Billion of our money to help huge bank and insurance conglomerates which never should have been allowed to get so large in the first place. If anyone believes that $700 Billion will end the crisis, I have some property I'd like to sell them too. Unfortunately, the property is not worth the value of its present mortgage and that bothers lawmakers, because they are heavily invested in the same banks they want American taxpayers to bail out.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, twenty-seven lawmakers owned stock in AIG last year, worth between $6.4 million and $20 million and fifty-four lawmakers own stock in Bank of America which is now a buyer, not a seller in this financial crisis. Our elected officials didn't feel that it was necessary to tell us the fine details of the closed door buyout proposal. Shouldn't we be informed about foreign banks that are also slated to benefit from the proposed bailout?

American taxpayers are expected to pay for the greed and unmanageability of the huge corporations which our own lawmakers helped to create in exchange for political contributions. The ABA (Washington's premiere lobbyist group for the American Banking Association) has donated millions of dollars to our elected officials. It is curious that the person leading the effort for the present bailout (Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Banding Committee), has accepted more than $20 Million in campaign contributions from the ABA, in addition to money from AIG, the insurance giant we now feel compelled to bail out.
Americans should be aware that the top three recipients of financial sector contributions between 1989 and 2008 were Hillary Clinton ($31M), Barack Obama ($28M) and John McCain ($26M). Senator Chris Dodd (Dem-Connecticut) who is coincidentally Chairman of the Banking Committee was not far behind as a recipient of over $13M.

What is more frightening than the money our elected officials have accepted from the financial sector in the past is that the ABA lobbyists are at it again. They are working very hard to shove this bailout package down the throats of hard working Americans, by throwing more money at our elected officials in exchange for their votes on this deal and their not concerned about party affiliation.

For those

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