Just sent emails to Kerry, Kennedy, and Capuano

[prog]

I urge my fellow Americans to join with me on this action. You can find your state's senators here and find your district's representative here.

I dashed this off myself in a minute. You can copy it if you'd like, but I encourage you to come up with your own words, too.

Dear $TITLE $LASTNAME:

I urge you to oppose the proposed $700 billion bailout of foundering financial companies through a massive federal purchase of bad mortgages and other assets.

I am dismayed and disgusted at the idea of using, all told, $1.8 trillion dollars[1] of taxpayer money in order to rescue private-sector firms from their own greed-driven mistakes, and hope that you consider this issue worth fighting.

I look forward to learning of your position and actions regarding this matter.

Sincerely,

Jason McIntosh
Somerville, MA

[1] Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26808715

Conventional wisdom is that email, while it does have mass, still carries a fraction of the weight of snailmail or phone calls, so I plan on printing these out and mailing them to the same folks' offices.

Honest question: what is the experience of phoning your senator or representative like? I'm not sure that I want to have a two-way conversation with someone about this - I just want to make my stance and desires known, and then get out. The one time I phoned a senator's office, like four years ago (I don't even really recall what the issue was), I called off-hours and left a voicemail. That was OK. Rattling off a screed to a live human would be a tad more awkward, though.

Comments

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

I called once about the university wanting to change the function of a campus building from something that's useful for everyone to something that's questionably useful only for a handful of minorities.

I got a secretary but my guess is that she merely marked down on a tally sheet that I was 'for X / not Y'. Once people start calling in en-masse on a matter the only practical way to handle it is via tally sheet.

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

I've called my senators & representatives many times, and basically what happens is you talk to an intern, they thank you and tell you that your comments are noted. It's really not all that different from talking to voice mail, except that you get a personal thank you.

And thanks for the reminder - it's time to make some calls about this issue.

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty annoyed by these sorts of bailouts too... esp in light of them "tightening up" personal bankruptcy laws to make sure that when individuals make bad financial choices they have to pay as much as possible for their mistakes. *cranky*

I have a friend who said that "predatory lending" was aok, because it was just the match of banks that were willing to make bad choices with consumers who were. I tried to point out that historically the consumers get screwed by those choices while the banks eventually get bailed out, but he didn't believe that would really happen that way.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

I think the primary point is not to keep the private businesses afloat forever, but to keep them afloat long enough to pay off their debts so that the bankruptcy does not continue to domino effect.

These aren't hand-outs; they're loans, fwiu. These businesses will be paying the U.S. back. And, under stricter regulation (since the U.S. becomes the primary shareholder, no?), they will not continue to repeat their mistakes.

And it's not nearly as much of a waste of taxpayer money as the war in iraq, imho.