Economist Joseph Stiglitz, in a recent article for The Nation, estimates that even with a new injection of $700 billion (on top of the hundreds of billions already pumped by the Feds into the credit markets), the taxpayers will still be stuck with tons of bad bad debt, while Wall Street will keep on gaming the same rigged system to ensure they continue to maximize their profits.

But that is precisely what the Bush bailout was designed to do. It would allow Wall Street, which has benefited from three decades of deregulation to continue on its unregulated way. Starting with Reagan and culminating with Bush, virtually every rule governing fair lending and rampant market speculation has been ignored.

John McCain wants more of the same. In addition to 26 years of promoting and voting for deregulation, he named mortgage lobbyist Rick Davis as his campaign manager. Since 2000, Davis has taken about $2.5 million to help Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Both of these failed institutions have been placed in federal (i.e. taxpayer) custody and are at the heart of the subprime mortgage collapse. Davis’s job as lobbyist/campaign manager was to facilitate the lending giants’ ability to continue to spurn all government regulations meant to prevent predatory lending.
This record of sleaze and insider deals is reflected in McCain’s views on a bailout. In their alternative bailout proposal, McCain and the congressional Republicans have demanded more tax breaks for the very people who caused the problem in the first place. There is no doubt that a McCain presidency would offer, as Barack Obama says, more of the same “trickle up” economics for the wealthy and a lot more “trickle down” pain for the rest of us.

Should the Wall Street players, Washington lobbyists, and their political arm in the Republican Party now get away with blackmailing taxpaying working families with their demands for a no-strings-attached bailout? The answer is no!