Email Your Congress People

I did. Here's what I had to say:

To my Representative and my Senator,

I am writing to you about two issues. The first is the trouble many of our fellow Americans are in with their mortgages, and the second is the proposed bailout of financial institutions which have mismanaged their own assets.

In regards to the first issue, I would like to offer a suggestion. I think the US government should begin a program for home owners based on the model used for college loans. Create an agency with the power to buy up mortgages and to administer them as we do the student loan program. To be eligible, the individual should be at or below a certain income level, have exhausted the options to refinance with the current lender, and agree to a repayment schedule. The repayment schedule options should be similar to those on student loans: a standard plan, an income-based plan, and some form of extended plan with a deferment for unemployment. In no case would a family be either left homeless, or let off the hook. The interest paid on these loans would be used to offset costs of the program, to extend the program if needed.

This action would do two things: first, it would protect American families who might otherwise lose their homes or be put into great financial difficulty or bankruptcy. That should be our top priority. Second, it would get some of these troubled mortgages off the books of struggling companies, but in a way which is not especially profitable to them. It would inject cash into institutions by paying the principal on the loans, but it would not otherwise cover the interest, fees and other profit makers for the lenders. In short, this would be a fairly neutral swap; the lender gets their money only if the homeowner is helped.

Regarding the second topic: I am completely opposed to spending 700 billion dollars on bailing out financial institutions. If we are going to socialize our economy, we should at least do it by trying to help individuals directly. If we have 700 billion dollars to spend, it should be spent on housing, food, education and other protections for people. It would be grossly unethical to spend that much money to bailout companies who had every reason to see this coming and who accepted the risk, while we say we don't have enough money for programs like education, health care and Social Security. I suggest we let the chips fall for these scoundrels, and use some of that 700 billion dollars to help the folks that are innocent casualties of the mess.

I look forward to your reply.