On October 3, 2008, the members of Congress voted for the Wall Street “bailout” without holding any meaningful hearings or public discussions.

The bailout’s $700 billion price tag is only an arbitrary guess by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and is most likely just the first installment of many more to come. Other economists, with more successful track records, believe the total will be much greater, perhaps $5trillion, as concealed losses are uncovered and foreign companies dump their toxic investment waste into their American offices.

In passing the “Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act of 2008,” Congress ignored the “great concern” expressed by almost two hundred of US’s leading economists who pleaded with Congress “not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action,...” In addition to its ambiguity and long-term effects, the economists believed the bailout plan to be “a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense” and to be “desperately short-sighted.” Ultimately, more than 400 top economists, including two Nobel Prize winners, voiced opposition to the bailout.

The economists were not alone in being ignored by the politicians. An AP poll only identified 30 per cent of the public in favour of the bailout, and a CNN Money opinion poll found 77 per cent of the people believing the bailout would benefit those most responsible for the economic downturn.

Who benefits? There is no doubt the bailout will most benefit some of the richest and highest paid individuals in the American economy. But, why did thepoliticians let this happen? The answer perhaps lies in the fact that individuals working for Wall Street finance, insurance and real estate companies and the companies’ political action committees have contributed more than $47 million to the campaigns of Senator Obama and Senator McCain, both of whom voted for the bailout. More to the point, Wall Street has contributed more than $1.1 billion dollars to congressional candidates since 2002.

Who loses? The ordinary, hard-working Americans, who were opposed to the bailout, and their children and grandchildren, will be the ones who will ultimately have to repay, with compound interest, the money that will have to be borrowed to give away to Wall Street bankers. The bailout was “sweetened” in the Senate by another $110 billion in tax relief and renewable energy incentives to get enough House votes for passage; however, only the temporary one-year slowdown of the Alternative Minimum Tax offered any succor to the middle-class workers affected by it.

The bailout raises the debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion, or about $37,524 for each man, woman and child in the United States. How is this burden ever going to be repaid? Workers already know their wages are falling, their jobs are at risk, their health care, food and fuel costs are skyrocketing, and they are being kicked out of their apartments and homes because they can’t pay the rents and mortgages.

Foreclosure: At least six million American home owners will probably default on their mortgages this year and next, and millions more will have their equity wiped out by declining property values. More than 770,000 homes have been seized by lenders since 2007, and 91,000 families were just kicked out of their homes in August. The only provision in the bailout legislation to remotely “benefit” home owners whose homes are being foreclosed upon merely “encourages” mortgage service companies to modify mortgages. Paulson is required to “maximise assistance for homeowners ... and minimise foreclosures”; however, he also has to ensure that the government doesn’t incur any additional costs. Thus, there’s little or no hope of any meaningful benefit to distressed homeowners resulting from the bailout.

The legislation could have required the government to directly purchase the defaulting mortgages and to adjust them to the reduced value of the property, as was done in the Great Depression. Instead, Paulson is authorised to purchase the complex derivatives (Wall Street’s gambling debts) piled on top of the original mortgages.

Bankruptcy: More than 4,476 Americans filed for bankruptcy every day during August, the highest number since changes in the law in 2005 made it much more difficult, and even impossible in many cases, to obtain debt relief. More than a million, increasingly elderly, people will petition for bankruptcy this year. Under the current law, bankruptcy judges do not have the power to modify mortgages of a petitioner’s primary residence, irrespective of how the mortgages have been sliced, diced and repackaged. The bailout could have provided judges with the authority, in appropriate cases, to adjust the amount secured by the mortgage to the value of the property and to adjust the interest rate to a reasonable percentage.

Unemployment: New claims for unemployment benefits across the US rose to 493,000 last week, the highest level in seven years. The US economy has already lost 605,000 jobs thus far this year, and it dumped 159,000 payroll jobs just during September, the greatest drop in five years.

Although the House of Representatives passed an economic stimulus bill that would fund job creation and extend jobless benefits for long-term unemployed workers on September 26th, the Senate failed to pass its own stimulus bill on the same day. President Bush has promised to veto the legislation if passed. The bailout legislation could have provided for an extension of jobless benefits, but it didn’t.

Homeless: More than 750,000 and as many as a million Americans are homeless today, and the numbers are increasing dramatically. The National Coalition for the Homeless reports that homelessness is growing because of foreclosures, loss of jobs, and the rising price of fuel and food. Homeless sites are appearing all across the country as people with no place to stay are pitching tents and huddling together for support and protection. Their plight did not receive any consideration by the Congressional leadership that rammed the bailout through Congress.

Hunger: The most recent report by the US Department of Agriculture found that in 2006, 35.5 million Americans lived in households with insecure food supplies and the numbers were increasing. At risk children numbered more than 12.6 million, and African Americans and Hispanic Americans suffered at higher rates than the national average.

In 2006, 9.6 million Americans had to frequently skip meals or eat too little, and often had to go without food for a whole day. Today, as members of Congress voted to reward the richest and most greedy members of American society, they ignored those without the most basic necessity for survival. Food banks which serve as the last resort for the hungry are running out of food. They are having to reduce rations and to dip into emergency supplies of staple items. There are reports of a 40 per cent increase in requests for food assistance and a 30 per cent drop in supplies. The bailout could have increased the amount of federal assistance for food banks in the Emergency Food Assistance Programme, but it didn’t.

Consequences: The real estate bubble that has been driving the United States economy has now popped, and there is no replacement engine to transport America’s consumer society down the highway to happiness. Americans are facing the mother of all depressions; it will be hard and it will last a long time. What are all of these homeless, hopeless, and hungrypeople going to do?

Many have already exercised their First Amendment right to petition their government for the redress of grievances. A majority of the members of Congress, the two presidential candidates, and the President paid no attention to the economic experts and the thousands and thousands of voters who protested against the bailout and who begged them to rescue the people rather than the rich and powerful.

The people can always take to the streets in protest, and they probably will do so in growing numbers as the economic circumstances become more harsh. The U.S. government is already planning for the eventuality – not with the helping hand of supplemental legislation to help with mortgages,jobs, shelter or food, but with the mailed fist of military.

The Army Times reports the current deployment within the US “homeland” of an “on-call federal response force for natural or man-made emergencies or disasters, including terrorist attacks.” The Army acknowledges that the Northern Command may call upon the Third Infantry Division’s First Brigade Combat Team to help with “civil unrest and crowd control.”

With almost a trillion dollars picked from their pockets to reimburse reckless Wall Street gamblers, many Americans righteously feel betrayed. A majority will elect a new president in about a month, and most will wait to see who it will be, and what if anything he can or will do to alleviate their suffering. Perhaps democracy in the United States is not dead; if not, it’s on its deathbed. Resuscitation in the form of responsible representation is possible, but time is running out.