Alternate Plan

OK, I've gotten some tentative information on the "alternate plan" proposed by the conservative Republicans.

Not a lot of detail, but it apparently calls for:

1. Mortgage insurance on many of the mortgage-backed securities.
2. A temporary repeal of the Captal Gains tax (which they will almost certainly spin as a "tax increase" if it is not made permanent next year)
3. Regulatory relief for businesses.

So basically, we bail out the people who bought these risky securities hoping to make a huge profit, because their gamble went south. We give tax breaks predominantly to those who can afford to have significant savings and almost nothing to the people who are falling victim to these predatory loans and who thus have almost nothing they can afford to put away in savings. And we repeal yet more regulations on business, because of course there's no possible way that insufficient regulations could come back to bite us.

Makes perfect sense that McCain would support this. It also makes perfect sense if he really wants to postpone this debate (obviously, if there had been a deal made today, there'd be no reason to justify that postponement).

And in typical Republican fashion it bails out the people who stood to BENEFIT had those securities NOT gone south and nothing to help the people at the bottom who are really just struggling to keep their homes.

As one friend of mine put it, it does make a weird sort of sense if you look at it the right way: If you want to stop people from illegally breaking and entering, one way to do it is to repeal the law that makes breaking and entering illegal. Boom, problem solved, no more illegal breaking and entering.

Liam.