Dennis Kucinich Wants To Give You Money

Well, we know of at least one citizen who won't be using his portion of the $700b bail-out on McDonald's apple pies. On Monday, Dennis Kucinich wrote about an 'ownership society' that he would like to see emerge in America. 

"Simply purchasing bad debt, 'cash for trash' and not receiving anything of value or giving $700 billion and not having a commensurate equity interest in Wall Street firms is unacceptable. No 'cash for trash,'" he wrote in his OpEdNews.com editorial. 

But what exactly does he mean by ownership society? Kucinich is saying that if American taxpayers are going to foot the bill in this epic cluster-fuck, then we should, in the end, become owners of those firms to a degree fitting with our contribution. That would mean that every man, woman, and child in the United States would essentially own $2300 in stock of AIG and other firms benefiting from the federal relief package. And with that ownership we would, of course, be entitled to dividends and allowed to profit from that ownership just like any other stock holder. 

Congressman Kucinich is introducing legislation that would create savings accounts in the names of all taxpaying citizens for which we may use to collect our returns. Critics are likely to submit that such a plan is impractical and would require too much man-power and logistics to execute. In addition, the case could be made that turning these suddenly impoverished Wall Street firms into public entities is not the long-term goal, and is an example of franco-esque corporate socialization. Likely, the commonly held view in Washington will be that any long-term profits gained from the bail-out should in some way benefit the average citizen, but that it should be absorbed into the national budget and distributed that way.

In Kucinich's plan the revenue would be spent at the tax-payers discretion, allowing it to bypass the sticky fingers of lobbyists, and pet-project earmarks recently made famous by this year's election cycle. But, the plan is also flirting dangerously close to communist/ socialist ideals and for that reason alone it is unlikely to gain much traction in the House. Equally good ideas might be to invest the profits in to a nationalized health-care scheme, perhaps even leveraging the now nationalized AIG's experience and position within to insurance industry to administer the plan. Also, we could use the money to invest in renewable energy, which as Bill Clinton said last night on Larry Kind Live, would: "Pump millions into our economy, create jobs, and stimulate investment competition." 

What would Dennis Kucinich buy with his $2,300? I don't know, but I would buy 660 boxes of Tofutti Cuties!