$700 Billion dollars isn't "based on any particular data point"

"We just wanted to choose a really large number," said a Treasury spokeswoman to Brian Wingfield and Josh Zumbrun of Forbes.com.

Well it's nice to know that our nation's financial future is based on nothing more than the whim of politicians and numbers pulled out of thin air just because they sound impressive. I'm impressed. That's enough to give every tax filer in the country more than $5000¹ in tax refunds! More than $7500 could be returned to each taxpayer. Think of how well that would stimulate the economy! How many mortgage payments could you make with $7500? How many of your credit cards could you pay off with $7500 in tax relief? Think you could figure out a better way to spend that money than the politicians? I think we could.

$9,950,000,000,000.00 that's a lot of zeroes. To steal a quote from the television show, Frasier, "you haven't seen so many zeroes lined up since Mr. Spock had a book signing." That was what the national debt stood at this morning when I looked at it. Now the politicians in Washington want to increase that number by 7% to 10,650,000,000,000.00 overnight?

It's insanity. It's absolute craziness to consider throwing untold amounts of money at a problem most politicians can barely wrap their minds around. All this just needs to stop. We need to get back to the root of this problem, which is out of control spending! We run around like drunken yuppies spending piles of electronic money we just don't have. I'm talking about the individuals of this nation as well as the government. We've allowed credit to completely overrun our quality of life and it's coming back to bite us in the butt big time.

I heard a debt consolidation commercial the other day claim that the average person has eight credit cards in his or her possession. It's no wonder our currency is so debased right now. We're out buying things we can't really afford. Purchasing new $30,000 cars off the lot on credit instead of buying one that's a couple years old for a quarter of the price in cash. It's completely irresponsible. But what do we have to look at from our government leaders as example? We have them spending more and more money each year on entitlement programs. We see them spending billions upon trillions of dollars on a failed public education system, on failed financial institutions, failed environmental policies, failed foreign relations and more. All just piling onto the national debt. It's time for us as people and as a nation to rise up beyond credit, take responsibility for our finances, and do what Americans do best! We need to pull ourselves up out of this crisis, ditch the old system of spending money we don't have, and build a new system in which we spend responsibly and take accountability for our own financial mistakes.

How do we do that? I don't have all the answers, but I have a huge amount of trust in the common sense goals and ideas from people like Dave Ramsey who promote individual responsibility in finances, and recommend people to not live in the cycle of debt, but to change their entire futures by climbing out of debt and living in a way that their income can more than support their lifestyle. It's a wonderful thing.

Dave Ramsey has created what appears to be the best approach to solving the nation's financial crisis that I've seen yet. I highly recommend it to all of you!
PDF of Dave Ramsey's common sense fix
PDF of Dave Ramsey's common sense fix (mirror) - you can view the PDF directly from LoveCdA.com if Mr. Ramsey's site is experiencing too much traffic.

Full list of Senate votes.

If you agree that we should take this common sense approach to the financial crisis and oppose the insane $700 billion bailout, contact your Senators and Representatives now!

Idaho Senators:
Larry Craig - Voted to approve the insane bailout
Harbor Plaza
610 Hubbard, Suite 121
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho 83814
Phone: 208-667-6130
Fax: 208-765-1743

Mike Crapo - Has stood up for the people by opposing the bailout
610 Hubbard Street
Suite 209
Coeur d' Alene, ID 83814
Phone: (208) 664-5490
Fax: (208) 664-0889

Idaho Representatives:
Bill Sali - Has stood up for the people by opposing the bailout
610 W Hubbard, Suite 206
Coeur d' Alene, Idaho 83814
Phone: 208-667-0127
Fax: 208-667-0310

Mike Simposon - Voted to approve the insane bailout
Mike Simpson is the representative from District 2 and so does not represent North Idaho, including Coeur d'Alene. However, we should still ask Mr. Sali to put pressure on Mr. Simpson to make the correct choice and vote against the bailout.
802 W. Bannock, Suite 600
Boise, Idaho 83702
Phone: 208-334-1953
Fax: 208-334-9533