Bailout Brainstorm: What Are Our Ideas?

By Jonathan Adams Sep 24, 2008

The Bush Administration is rushing for Congress accept this bailout plan, Democrats are asking for checks on Secretary of Treasury Paulson, and now, John McCain is ready to put his campaign on hold and postpone the debate to focus on the financial crisis ( I guess this is kinda like a hurricane). Some may have been convinced in the last few days that we don’t know as much about the economy as we thought we did, but there are definitely some people with good ideas about how we should fix this money mess. Let’s hear you. To start things off, take a look at some numbers from the National Priorities Project (H/T Jill from Jack and Jill Politics) that show you just how much money $700 billion dollars really is.

A healthy and productive economy requires substantial investment in affordable housing, health care, education and renewable energy. Taxpayers in the United States who will be required to pay $700 billion for the Wall Street bailout should also know that for the same amount of money, they could secure the following: *51.6 million people with health care for four years OR *181.2 million homes with renewable electricity for four years OR *2.9 million elementary school teachers for four years OR *27 million four-year scholarships for university students $700 billion is more than what is currently allocated for the U.S. war in Iraq. This amount would allow us to repair all of our nations 77,000 deteriorated bridges and still have $519 billion to spend; or it would allow us to rebuild all of our nations 33,000 deteriorating schools and still have $664 billion to spend.

Trickle down economics don’t work in people of color’s favor. What are some racially just solutions to this financial crisis?

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