A trillion dollar bailout for the banks - where is the money going to come from?

Tweet

We've heard today that Bush's treasury secretary has announced a far reaching plan to bail out the banks, basically by the US taxpayer stumping up billions if not upto a trillion dollars to take the bad mortgage assets of their books. I understand what the administration is trying to do. It is trying to shore up confidence in the banks by removing their bad debt at US taxpayers expense so that confidence in the banks returns and they can then lend to each other again thus keeping the US economy from entering a great depression. The administration calculates that paying the pill now and saving the financial system is better than the alternative collapse of the banking system and the depression that would follow this. But it still makes me mad, mad that ordinary people on low or middle incomes are going to have to pay for this mess, a mess generated by the fact that the banks and financial services industry was not being regulated properly by the Republican administration. We've racketted up billions and billions of dollars of debt already, this made worse by the tax cuts to the wealthy that were given back in 2001. Now that this administration is going to pump upto one trillion dollars to shore up the banking system, there is no money in the cupboard to pay for all of this. So I ask, where is the money going to come from. I have an idea: I am fed up of ordinary people having to pay more and more (oil, gas, food, etc). Ordinary people need a break. Obama has talked about a windfall tax on the oil industry. I think there should be windfall taxes on other industries as well, particularly those who have made some good profits over the last few years. Perhaps the wealthy can have their tax cuts reversed as they will be contributing to the national interest in this time of crisis. Yes, government for the national interest, that would be a refreshing change! What I'm saying is that ordinary men and women on low and middle incomes - who are being badly squeezed already financially - shouldn't have to pay for the mistakes of this Administration for failing to regulate the banking sector properly and nor should they have to pay to bail out the bankers who got us into this mess. Ordinary people need a break, let the captains of industry and the wealthy pay more to get us out of this mess - we need to find upto 1 trillion dollars for this cleanup operation. Perhaps Obama could take this up, it has a populist ring to it and may go down well with many voters! Right, better put my hard hat on - Incoming!