One of the most interesting parts of the debate going on about the bailout is the Democrat's proposal to make the bailout include conditions on limiting executive pay packages. Well, as you can imagine, that is not sitting well with the "corporate aristocracy" which as the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) estimates, already benefits from a $20 billion a year subsidy in the form of tax loopholes. In this year's annual "Executive Excess" report, IPS says that S&P 500 CEOs' pay packages were about 344 times the pay 
of typical U.S. workers and the top 50 hedge and private equity fund managers' pay averaged more than 19,000 times as much as a typical U.S. worker. It is entirely reasonable that major banks getting massive bailouts from taxpayers should be expected to meet certain guidelines on reasonable executive
Big Five Houses, that bonus money means an average of $201,500 per
person -- more than four times the $48,201 median household income in
the U.S. last year."
In addition to tackling outrageous executive pay, I'm very interested in Jonathan Tasini's proposal that if the people are paying for this bailout, we should have some more direct control over the companies we are buying in to. If our money is being invested without our consent, we should at least get some payback, right? As Tasini says, "We
got into this mess, in part, because Fannie and Freddie were run to
enrich their executives - who should have been fired long ago - and to
maximize profits... So how do the
American people stop this from happening again? We need is to make sure the boards of the two institutions are run by, and for, the public."
Obviously, the prospect of a global financial collapse is frightening, but I can't also help but think about how far $700 billion could go if put towards other priorities as well. In terms of comparison, according to statistics from the 2006 federal budget from the National Priorities Project, the bailout could cover Medicaid ($199,653,538,000), Medicare ($349,093,585,000), Section 8 housing ($13,669,737,000), Head Start ($ 5,693,546,000), OSHA ($154,658,000), Mine Safety and Health Administration ($7,267,000), Worker Safety and Health-DHHS programs ($ 32,448,000), Coal Mine Workers' Compensation ($260,004,000) and still leaves us with over $131 billion. For more comparisons, click here. When financial crises like these occur, it would be nice to have an extra $13 billion lying around, but according to an investigator testifying before Congress yesterday, that exact amount in U.S. aid to Iraq was wasted, stolen or lost recently. Ooops!
Bill Fletcher, a longtime labor activist and ILRF board president, had a lot of interesting things to say about the impact of the bailout proposal and general financial crisis on workers on Democracy Now today. I also highly recommend checking out this article by Glenn Greenwald from Salon as well as this piece by labor-friendly Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. Senator Sanders and other experts also had a segment on Democracy Now here.
The Washington Post has an article on the "Main Street" reaction to the bailout here.
For more on McCain and Obama's response to the bailout proposal, check out this New York Times article.
So: What do YOU think? What should be done about the financial crisis? Is this bailout a good idea? What will be the effect on working families? What should organized labor do about it?