I think there needs to be effective regulation that ensures that these companies are looking closely at who they are lending money to and how much they are giving.
Agreed, although part of the problem was/is in fact government pressuring to give money to people who otherwise would not get loans.
We as Americans must also learn to live within our means. I think that is imperative regardless of what side you sit on. I just believe in using government as an effective tool to increase those means... but you should never live beyond them.
Agreed.
We can't make the mistakes taht were made in the Great Depression. We can't stand back and do nothing and we can't choke the market with regulations.
I'd dispute that we did 'nothing.' We did try a lot of idiotic things like protectionism and tax hikes the last time around. The problem was that the government just didn't have a good game plan last time around.
We need to boost spending on infrastructure and make investments in the economy to get the gears turning again. Putting people to work rebuilding our highways and railroads will give people more confidence and they will start spending again. No tool is as effective as positive thinking and hope in these times.
Agreed.
We need to let the economy correct itself without letting Americans fall through the cracks. By investing in things like our infrastructure and schools, we are putting people to work building a strong, long term foundation for our economy. This will have a more positive effect than direct government intervention that seeks to set wages or prices. That will simply scare people out of investing which is important at this time.
Agree to an extent. However, the problems with our schools can not be fixed with more funds alone. We're spending a ton on education at the federal level, more so than we ever before. It's not going anywhere. I'd agree with things like after school programs and student loans but right now we seriously need to trim the bureaucracy and implement other reforms like merit pay too.
That said, we do need a modest tax increase on the wealthy to help towards balancing our budget. I don't advocate a rise to 70% or 90%... but again, I believe a 10% tax on income over $1000,000 to help pay for this bail out is important. Sure, it will discourage a small amount of investment... but no more than just letting our debt run up more and more to the point where long term investments in our country seem futile under crushing debt.
In the long term we should increase taxes on the wealthy, however I'm unsure whether we should do that now. There is the inflation issue but historically that almost always makes things a lot worse during a recession. That said the Bush Tax Cuts were a mistake.
