Reply to Congressman John Hall

Today I received an email from John Hall's office, explaining why he voted to pass the revised bail-out plan. (Which was roundly defeated in the House of Representatives.) Mr. Hall did make some good points, but I can't endorse any plan which was given 15 minutes of consideration and doesn't include criminal charges against those who LIED to the people, to the press, to their employees and their investors.

I wrote this to Mr. Hall on his own website email page, which isn't working! Apparently, it's bailed out! So, now this is an 'open letter' which I intend to send far and wide.

Issue: Armageddon. "Pass this bill! Pass it now! We need action. Immediate action. Don't look both ways before crossing the street, just RUN, dammit! Our futures hang in the balance. We have no time to take stock of the situation; it's got to be done now, now NOW! Oh sure, Congress gets to take time off to observe a religious holiday, but we have NO time to convene an advisory board of independent economists or even to determine if Congress is half-way cognizant of the situation and the consequences of lightning-fast, knee-jerk reactions that, coincidentally, keep things pretty sweet for some CEOs who SHOULD be going to jail, instead of receiving only half of their 'Golden Parachutes. So don't think about it, JUST DO IT!"

Frankly, Mr. Hall, I don't give a tinker's damn about the way you voted. This is a world-wide economic problem and it deserves a little bit more time and consideration than you seem willing to allow. Let's get the crackpots who ran up a humongous war debt (whilst privatizing and deregulating major economic markets) OUT OF OFFICE before we try to start digging ourselves out of this hole. Until the Bush Administration is neutralized it's always going to be the taxpayers who take it up the rear.

(Point of information not included in my original reply: The IRS processes about two million tax returns every year. (This includes large corporations.) If we took the trillion dollars that are 'needed' for this bail-out and divided it amongst all those who filed, we'd be getting back $5,000.00 per tax return. (These are my calculations and probably wrong.) $5,000.00 would look pretty good to me right now. Let Big Business bail itself out. Their officers and board members have enough in their off-shore bank accounts to do it.)

You wrote: "Tomorrow I am returning to Washington for votes on a revised rescue package. I'm not giving up and I'll continue working until we come to a bipartisan agreement to stabilize the markets." Dandy. Make it a good agreement. You also wrote about taking "swift, responsible, and effective steps...". Let's go a little light on the 'swift', please, and try to nail something together that isn't the result of uniformed panic and unbridled avarice.

Lois Carneiro