I believe some type of means testing must be applied to banks before they get any public money.

[Selatius]

The bank should follow several guidelines before any public money is given to them at all.

1. Proposals on executive pay/benefits such as severance packages should be run by the government for approval and if necessary vetoed. Taxpayers don't need to get fleeced anymore than they already have. The government could order the bank to redirect those funds to other things, like using the funds to maintain liquidity instead.

2. Money for shares as a permanent check on banking abuses. The bank recognizes that if it accepts any cash from the government, then the government maintains the option into perpetuity of holding some shares of the company or perhaps even all shares in extreme cases. Basically, the government gets a seat at the decision-making table at this bank in terms of dealing with company policy, policy towards customers, policy towards workers, pay/benefits issues, etc.

3. The bank must submit a realistic plan on how it plans to get back to financial stability if it is given any money and must accept random audits by the government at any time the government wishes until such time that the company is considered stable. At that point, the government would only demand annual earnings or quarterly earnings reports the same as any shareholder would, assuming the government exercises the option of holding some percentage of the company's shares indefinitely.

4. A formula should be devised on how fast the bank pays back the government loan and at what interest rate the bank must pay the government that takes into account the size of executive pay packages/severance packages, its earnings reports, the accuracy of its accounting methodology, whether it has implemented any policies to safeguard against the same abuses/mistakes that got the bank in trouble, and the bank's compliance with such policies.

Naturally, a bank that falls short in the means testing risks paying a higher interest rate on the public loan, and a bank that completely fails to abide by the terms risks having the entire loan called in at one time, and if the bank cannot cover the call, then the federal government has the option of liquidating the assets of the company entirely and revoking the company's corporate charter.

In other areas, I second Durbin's motion to repeal Bush's tax cuts to pay for the 700 billion dollars except for whatever tax cuts were aimed at the working poor and middle class people.