Any revenue that may be made from this investment--I mean every single dime--first be used to pay off the T-Bills issued to pay for this bill. Any profit made by the Federal Government, if there is one, goes to pay down the National Debt. If the Government treats this $700B as "found money", I'm going to be furious.
I agree and think if we do end up making money off this bailout and Obama is elected he will use this money to pay for his government expansion. Maybe I'm being way to pessimistic and Obama won't spend the money but use it to pay off the debt.
Could not agree more. The thing that really pisses me off about government's ability to handle anything of this complexity (regardless of which political party in charge) is that it seems like money has a habit of disappearing down accounting black-holes, never to be seen from again.
If either of these candidates were smart, they'd pledge to do that very thing. In fact, it would be funny to see Sarah Palin say "well, we in Alaska cut a check due to excess funds going to the state coffers from oil revenues, and I'd treat any profit from putting the people's money at risk in the same fashion."
I suppose since the government is using our money to "invest" in risky assets, we should benefit from any "profit" the invest may incur. I wouldn't mind seeing a "bailout refund" check show up in a couple years. Gramps...
There better be, considering that the government is buying "property" on our behalf, if they flip those bitches then it's time to pay me back -- I'm calling my markers in.
*&^*&^&*&*&O)*&^&*^()&^%^()&^&())!!!!!!! This is part of Sen. Dodd's add-on to Sec. Paulson's proposal: http://publicmarkup.org/bill/dodds-legislative-proposal-treasury-department-aut/1/5/ Bottom line, they're not going to pay off these bonds; they're going to use it as found money to subsidize housing. Un-fucking-conscionable.
Seriously, this clause makes the bill currently supported the by the Democrats and Bush Administration a no-go for me. How hard is it to pass a clean bill without these kinds of BS riders?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080926/ap_on_bi_ge/bailout_paper_trail Bailout bill, once 3 pages, swells in length A week ago, it totaled just three pages — the White House's request for $700 billion to rescue tottering financial institutions by buying their devalued mortgage-related assets. By Monday, after an intense weekend of negotiations, the draft of the bailout legislation before Congress had swelled to 42 pages. By Friday, after almost a week of marathon talks between Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and key lawmakers in both parties, the working version was up to 102 pages. It likely will grow even longer as negotiators continue to tweak the proposal this weekend, adding and subtracting key elements. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the House Financial Services Committee's chairman, was optimistic Friday that a final agreement could be reached by Sunday.
