Go ahead. Make our day!

In a move reminiscent of the rush to war, the Bush administration has sought unchecked power from Congress to buy $700 billion in bad mortgage investments from financial companies. Anyone with the best interests of U.S. citizens at heart would reject these high pressure sales tactics.

The taxpayer should however pick up some stock in these financial institutions at fire-sale prices. There should be no unsecured loans to Wall Street. They should not be allowed to off-load their bad paper. Any relief provided by we the people should be secured with a super-priority interest in any assets of the companies seeking such relief.

In the past, stockholders have bought into the circular logic that the only way to get "top executive talent" was to pay over a thousand times what the average worker makes. What we got instead was a class of intellectually and morally defective megalomaniacs that proved themselves to be thoroughly incompetent in their areas of supposed expertise.

Such individuals feign surprise when oil prices rise. Politicians who did nothing to move us towards renewable energy, over a period of decades, are now characterizing themselves as champions of renewable energy. These same politicians succumbed to the improper influence of lobbyists for decades and now blame the lobbyists. Should we now trust them as they propose a new protection scheme? The answer is no.

From this point forward, IncumbentOut.Org will focus intently on two groups of elected officials: Those so called leaders that trace their political careers back to the decade following the oil embargo of the 1970's who do not have a history of supporting renewable energy; and those integrity challenged politicians who endorse any form of financial system bailout that is not secured with a super-priority equity interest in the subject companies.