My End or Yours?

This is the first of our weekly installment of "My End or Yours", a point/counterpoint-style discussion. You are welcome to choose sides if you would like. We two sisters thrive on competition. This week's point was choosen by Boop.

Topic: Obama's Main Street Bailout: Will it Accomplish More than the Wall Street Bailout?

Becky Boop: No

Before our three blog followers begin bombarding me with hate mail, questioning my love of this country and the policies of our President-elect, allow me to make a few clarifications:

1. I am as pro-Obama as it is humanly possible to be. I virulently supported him throughout the 2008 Presidential campaign, literally attempting to convert everyone I knew to the cause of "change." I have alluded in other posts to my presence at the Grant Park Rally on November 5, 2008 and I wish I had the coffers of Oprah Winfrey so I could fly out and join the inauguration party this coming week. Obama is a mere man, but has more potential to do good for this nation than I can process without letting out an enthusiastic "Woo! (like a drunken Lincoln Park sorority girl at a John Barleycorn bachelorette party).

2. I was as dead set against the Wall Street bailout as I am against the Main Street one, perhaps even more so. My fears were that there would be no oversight/accountability, and my discomfort with the idea of the U.S. government intervening in a free market, whether it succeeds or fails. Worst of all, I suspected that all this dumping of money into the economy (which does have to repaid one day somehow!), would not even change anything. Typically, I love to be right. In this case, I am just sorry.

So anyway, why do I oppose the very first item of business that the man I worked so hard to elect wants to accomplish? Well that's complicated, but I like lists, so to reduce it to the simplest of terms, let me break it down:

1. I would have preferred a Main Street, rather than Wall Street bailout in the first place. I never understood Bush and Congressional thinking that it was more critical to keep AIG and other nonhuman entities afloat, rather than helping normal everyday tax payers stay in their homes, their jobs and keep food on the table. But since that was not the agenda of a "Business First" Congress, 750 billion dollars later, I realize that despite what Hank Paulson may want us to believe, there is no currency printing press hidden in the back of the Treasury Dept. building. We just can't afford this.

2. I am cool with the "New Deal"-esque infrastructure improvements. I have spent many a stoned and drunken night wandering the streets of our American cities, hungry, tired and paranoid, waiting for one of the decrepit highway overpasses to bring an abrupt end to my dissipated life. I also think of those poor folks in Minnesota, driving home from work one afternoon only to find themselves submerged in a river and waiting for the National Guard. This is long overdue. However, I take huge, huge issue with the 300 billion "stimulus" that is slated to be paid out to American families this year. This is a bone thrown at the GOP to secure their support. I know Obama has to play the game and make compromises where he must, but 300 billion amounts to $500 per taxpaying adult in the U.S. What good will that money do you in this economy? How far does a onetime payment of $500 go to a family where one or more parent is unemployed and /or the home is in foreclosure? Wouldn't you rather have a job say, or maybe healthcare that doesn't require you to file bankruptcy in the event that you have the nerve to get sick? This is a disingenuous inclusion in the package and Americans will see through it. Take that 300 billion out, spare the bloated deficit any more fat, and invest in something real.

3. And most critically, what if, like the first bailout, it just doesn't work? Then what? We are still screwed and now we really have a deficit problem (like we didn't before).

I am of the opinion that the system is failing because it's corrupt, inefficient and outdated. I know Americans are hurting, and believe me, I feel the fallout in my own personal and professional life. But we can't keep throwing good money after bad, propping up a structure that just may need to fall so it can figure out how to pick itself back up again. This is my take anyway, but my esteemed sister and our readers may feel otherwise. Call me a member of the laissez faire side of this issue. I am not against progress, but as Obama himself once said, playing politics with money we don't have is not change, "that's more of the same."

Jen of All Trades: Yes

Its hard to disagree with some of the points Boop has made. The first round of economic stimulus checks that went out didn't do a damn bit of good to boost the economyas far as I have heard. It did, however, help me to replace the roof on my house. I don't know what other people did with their cash or what they plan to do with this load. But people need hope, and lots of it.

Right now:

People are HOPING to be able to pay their mortgage and not lose their house.

People are HOPING to feed their family of three/four/five-plus people every day until they can find a new job to replace the one this economy stole from them.

People are HOPING they don't have to hold an E-Bay auction in order to pay mounting medical bills because of poor or no healthcare coverage.

If this money can bring hope to fruition for someone, then how can we say its no good at all? These "hopes" are necessities, not luxuries. These are the things honest, hard working people should just have as the fruits of their labor, not hope for. The way things are rolling right now, that is just simply not the case.

Even in a "good" economy, we had a tremendous national debt. I certainly don't claim to be an economist or any other smart math-type person. I don't know if the hole ever gets so deep it doesn't matter if we dig a couple billion dollars deeper. I just don't know. But I DO know that no one else seems to have the perfect answer. We have to keep trying. This is a crisis the like of which this generation has never seen. The best ideas are formed from throwing the proverbial noodles against the wall and seeing which ones stick.