How You Can Help

Sign our petition

Congress heard the anger for a while and stopped the defective emergency bailout once, but then turned around and passed it into law a few days later. We need to pass broader legislation that puts Main Street before Wall Street, that prevents future bailouts, that reforms credit card companies and that gives consumers their own government chartered financial watchdog.

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Overview

Congress passed the Bush administration's emergency bailout legislation to prevent the collapse of Wall Street and the real estate sector. The administration asked for and received an unprecedented no-strings-attached $700 billion taxpayer bailout for failed Wall Street firms.

The bailout puts taxpayers’ wallets on the chopping block without a chance to get their money back and fails to hold either Treasury Secretary Paulson or the many banks lined up for handouts accountable.

How did we get this far?
Last year, reports of unsafe, deceptive loan practices in the mortgage industry led to the collapse of Countrywide Mortgage and others and the firing of numerous big bank CEOs because their banks balance sheets showed massive exposure to risky securities based on the questionable mortgages. Commercial banks (mostly small) that were overly-exposed to real estate loans began to fail and be taken over by the FDIC.

We've worked with 26 leading consumer, civil rights, labor and community organizations to send Congress a detailed platform on how to address the crisis putting taxpayers ahead of Wall Street.