Like everyone else, my heart sunk when I heard that Tim Geithner was about to announce the Obama administration's plans plans for the rest of the TARP money. Because for all of the common sense-sounding rhetoric about how this "new rescue plan must help struggling homeowners by reworking their mortgages", anyone who has paid a half second worth's of attention to history, recent and otherwise, knows that the banks have no intention of letting this money trickle down on the rest of us.
And while their buddies in the corporate-owned media keep telling us that only by giving more money and tax cuts to the upper classes, thanks to the efforts and information from those in this community, we know there is a better way.
So rather than let the banks steal sit on another $350 billion dollars or our tax dollars, I'd like to ask my fellow Kossacks to help push for two plans, which, together will lower our energy usage, costs and dependence on foreign oil, stop the plummeting home values, while keeping Americans in their homes and putting them back to work. And these two plans, Rebuild America and The Architecture 2030 Stimulus Plan, actually cost less than the $350 billion Geithner wants to give to the banks.
Most of us believed that January 20, 2009 was going to be the start of a new era in Washington. But we also knew that the Old Guard wasn't going to go away quietly and that we were going to have to keep fighting hard, if not harder to make the changes we all know are needed. Many of President Obama's Cabinet choices and their policy proposals affirmed the need for us to stay vigilant and keep fighting for the right legislation. Because Tim Geithner can talk as tough as he wants to about public assistance being a privilege, not a right, but we know that the privileged elites in DC and NY who have been hammering away at Obama's stimulus plans aren't listening.
And why should they? They've been above the law and out of touch with reality for years now, and without a tsunami of populist rage coursing through America, they'll weather the economic storm they helped create far easier than the rest of us.
Which is why we need the remainder of the bank bailout money to bypass the banks and go directly into the hands of American taxpayers. And it's why we need to support the both the Architecture 2030 Stimulus Plan and the Energy Future Coalition's Rebuild America plans.
Both of these plans start off with the same premise, that by retro-fitting existing buildings, commercial and private, we can save billions in energy costs and put hundreds of thousands of people in the hard-hit construction industry to work immediately. Both plans address climate change and both lead to a decrease in our dependence on foreign energy.
There are some differences between these proposals to be considered, both in cost and implementation, that I would expand on further if this community is interested, but for right now, either one of these plans is ten billion times better and more effective in pulling us out of our current recession than anything I've heard from President Obama's staff so far. And with Architecture 2030's proposal to make the funds available through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for homeowners to retrofit their house for energy efficiency, the banks would be forced to lend the money to homeowners that they have so far refused.
As we've seen, TARP 1.0 has done nothing to ease the credit crunch, stimulate the economy or help our country out of its current repression. However, an investment in energy efficient renovations would dramatically and quickly change the US economic outlook. Based on their estimates of 1.25 million new and 2.1 million refinanced 30-year mortgages and 400 million square feet of new and 900 million square feet of renovated commercial building space in each year, Architecture 2030 predicts that 9,297,687 jobs would be created in two years.
And while the phrase has been beaten to death by both the sincere and the cynical, over 9 million jobs is change I can believe in. And that is why TARP 2.0 needs to go directly to the taxpayers themselves in the form of programs which would retrofit buildings for energy efficiency. If you agree, please call your Senators - switchboard number (202) 224-3121, Congresspersons - (202) 225-3121, and the White House (202) 456-1414, and tell them to support the stimulus plans of Architecture 2030 and the Energy Future Coalition.