Joseph:

A payroll tax cut is fine, but someone has to pay for the services and those taxes will come right back. As for why Bush did not suggest it, Bush took millions of poor working people off of the tax rolls entirely.

And I refuse to blame Republican incompetence for any of this. At least Bush and McCain both tried to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and neither one of them got the support they needed from either party to get that done. I also do not think it is fair to assume that if Bush had just let the banks collapse back in September we would be better off. In fact chances are if the Feds had refused to do anything, the situation would have been worse and the Democrats would have made greater gains. There is no reason to believe it would be otherwise. There is not one country in the industrialized world that could afford to act, that did not. Not one. And the countries who did not act were the ones which lacked the resources and now they are facing protests.

I am not against all government intervention, but this bill is way too much for all the wrong reasons. For instance, word is all the work has to go to union members. That means that 85% of the workforce is locked out of the jobs.