Dear President Obama, During the campaign, you repeatedly told us you were going to help us middle class folks. Now that you are president, it appears that your bailout package is designed to shovel cash to the Big Money Boys. I don't see much that would help the folks struggling to pay mortgages and credit card debt.
The very banks that are taking Federal Money are the ones screwing us with outrageous interest rates. While Federal Reserve rates are zero or close to zero, credit card holders are being charged 10%, 12%, 18%, even as high as nearly 30%. These are rates that used to be illegal!
And the credit card companies are using every excuse to jack up interest rates on their customers. Pay a credit card monthly minimum just one day late, and rates will skyrocket on that card and other unrelated cards. In fact, they don't even use pretenses. Card holders are getting notices in the mail that their rates are going up. No real explanation. They just do it because they feel like doing it, and because they have the legal right to change the terms of the deal on their whim. And because they can send out notices telling their customers that they can either accept the terms or not. Of course, this is no choice at all. If a customer does not accept the terms, he is obligated to pay off the entire balance all at once. Unless the customer has won the lottery, it's impossible.
Meanwhile, the banks and Wall Street Treasury Pirates have taken the money with no explanation of what they have done with it. Occasionally a scandal erupts. Some CEO gets a zillion dollar bonus with taxpayer money. Some bank buys a private jet airplane. Another bank plans a multimillion dollar Las Vegas bash for its employees. Mr. President, you have issued rules capping executive bonuses, but today the Los Angeles Times reports that they will find a way around that. And in the case of the jet and the Vegas party, those have been cancelled, but we all know that other outrageous expenditures will happen out of the public spotlight. And with our money.
Put a cap on credit card interest rates. Millions of Americans owe the credit card companies billions of dollars. We are all struggling out here. We want to pay our debts, but we want a fair financial deal at the table. And credit card rates are grossly unfair to us, the taxpayers who are paying for the bailouts. It makes sense to cap those rates. It would help ease the financial burden on Americans, many of whom are under emplolyed or losing their jobs. And any help we can get will surely help ease America's economic meltdown.
Mr. President, we voted you into office based on your promises to middle class Americans. We expect you to do all you can to keep those promises.
--NEWSGUY
Los Angeles.
5 comments:
I am not sure where you think "your bailout package is designed to shovel cash to the Big Money Boys." that is in the Recovery Package. I must have missed that part in all of them I have read. I didn't see it in the House Bill, I didn't see it in the Senate Bill, and I didn't see it in the explanation I read at US News..but maybe I missed it somewhere. So if I did I am sorry, Most of what I am seeing is geared toward lower and middle class, and the unemployed. There is some for small businesses but I sure don't remember anything for the big money boys... other than when he told the wall st. bankers yesterday they couldn't make much money yesterday and now they are all yelling.
Just saying.
Read the papers. Where do you think these failed institutions are getting the disposable income to buy jets, throw huge parties, give huge bonuses to CEOs? I don't see anything geared toward lower and middle class. The latest is a big tax break for home buyers. Who can buy a home these days? Lower and middle class?
Thanks for dropping by. Come on back now, y'heah?
$142 billion in Making Work Pay tax credits will provide ninety-five percent of American workers with up to $500 in extra cash in their paychecks; married couples filing jointly can receive up to $1000 total.
$15 billion in tax cuts for families will give cash back to parents through an expansion of Earned Income Tax Credit for families with three or more children, additional marriage penalty relief for couples, and increased eligibility for the Refundable Child Tax Credit for lower-income families.
$4 billion in tax cuts for homeowners will facilitate new home purchases with enhancements to the existing $7,500 homebuyer tax credit.
$17 billion in one-time payments to seniors, disabled veterans and others will provide an immediately usable payment of $300 to seniors on Social Security, low-income recipients of Supplemental Security Income, disabled veterans and veterans on pensions, Railroad Retirement beneficiaries, and others who may not qualify for the Making Work Pay.
$70 billion in Alternative Minimum Tax relief will protect 24 million working families from thousands of dollars in additional income taxes for 2009
That's a whole lot more than a tax break for home buyers wouldn't you say??? That's from the US News & World report summary of the Recovery Plan. It has changed some since then and I believe it is a little better right now.. but am not sure because I haven't yet seen what they are finishing up today. But, there are more tax breaks for the lower and middle class in there. A lot more.
OK, OK, I admit I haven't looked that closely at the numbers. I just know Bush gave $350 billion to the banks and they squirreled it away and won't tell us what they did with it. And a third of Obama's House bill is in tax breaks. I just don't think tax breaks are the right idea. Infrastructure spending, improving the National Parks, the stuff Roosevelt did, that worked. We need more of that kind of thing. And a cap on credit card rates.
And the wall street bonuses, $18 billion. These guys ought to be in jail. Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. ought to be in jail for the biggest bank robbery in history. What is Obama going to do about the huge fraud that has been visited on the American people?
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