The Obama bailout benefits financial institutions and corporations that created America's economic disaster, rather than her workers.

For example, General Motors will cut its U.S. workforce 38 percent but is hiring for auto factories in China where wages are one-tenth that of an American. GM plans to export Chinese made cars to the United States. That contributes nothing to jobless Americans or our industrial base.

Corporate and financial industries contributed to the economic recession and now hamper recovery efforts.

The American Bankers Association recently blocked a bankruptcy reform bill sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin that would let 600,000 people facing foreclosure stay in their homes.

Congressional and executive leadership should:

• Reinstate regulation of banks, insurers, securities firms, hedge funds and enforce regulatory laws.
• Require the Justice Department to prosecute corporate fraud to full extent of the law.
• Make the Office of Government Ethics a truly effective enforcement agency for Congress, executive offices, lobbies and big money donors.
• Retool failing factories to produce products we need - saving jobs and industry.
• Set realistic spending caps for presidential and congressional campaigns. Get big money out of elections.
• Close open borders, eliminate work visas and enforce immigration laws.
• Make off-shore accounts illegal and extract full payment of back taxes from existing accounts.
• Stop increasing the national debt!
• Exercise fidelity to our Constitution and laws, champion American industry and the citizen's right to a job with a livable wage over the demands of bloated corporate and financial organizations.

Richard Salome

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